Register.com Partners Nab Domains

Shortly after the announcement that the .US domain name is being given away, two registrars appear to have nabbed the domains of smaller countries. But will the plight of Antigua and the Seychelles be noticed?

by Ryan Naraine of atnewyork.com [August 16, 2001]

Alley URL registration and hosting firm Register.com (NASDAQ:RCOM) has struck a deal to oversee the technical management of two country code domains (ccTLDs), .AG and .SC, which will be made available in the fall.

Nic AG operates the .AG top-level domain for Antigua and 6th Dimension is the marketing agent of the .SC registry, the top-level domain for the Seychelles.

.org.ag, .gov.ag, and .net.ag domain names will remain free, but Nic AG is charging $100 per year for .com.ag and .net.ag to Antiguans, and $150 per year for .ag domain names to Antiguans. Non-Antiguans pay twice those prices.

No further information on London-based 6th Dimension Limited was available at press time.

Outsourced registrar
Marking its official entry into the domain registry space, Register.com said its Registry Advantage outsourced service would power the rollout of the .AG and .SC country codes, and called them "alternatives to the .COM, .NET, and .ORG domains."

Registry Advantage is being touted as a full-service domain registry technology that allows registries of all sizes to use the infrastructure.

Nic AG is particularly bullish about the .AG extension. In Germany, .AG is the equivalent of "Inc." or "Corp."—and Germany is among the top domain buying countries in the world.

It is not the first time a country code has been marketed as a top-level domain. The country Tuvalu has sold the rights to the .TV extension and Colombia recently attracted bids to manage the .CO domain.

Register.com chief technical officer Rob Gardos said Registry Advantage would collect an undisclosed cut of transactions processed through its service.

"We're actually running a full service outsourced solution for other registries. Everything needed to run a registry will be available...the back-end infrastructure, software and customer support. That's what we're offering to the registries," Gardos told atNewYork.

The move to launch Registry Advantage comes as the Manhattan-based firm is looking to find revenue streams away from the TLD registry and DNS services offered through traditional Register.com channels.

"This positions us as an infrastructure player. Registries can use the services to offer real-time domain name resolution, advanced Whois capabilities, 24-hour customer support, and online client management applications."

Gardos said the infrastructure was designed to support millions of transactions daily.

Register.com plans to accept registrations of .AG and .SC domain names this quarter.

—End