Domain News Archive

Right of the Dot has opened pre-bidding for the NamesCon domain auction and plans to hold the live sale on November 11 at 4 p.m. Eastern in Miami, according to Westmore. The auction currently lists more than 300 domains, including Borrow.com, Fare.com, HomeService.com, Edinburgh.com, and CapeTown.com, and bidders can join in person or online, according to Westmore.

A World Intellectual Property Organization panel has found that Mena Speakers LLC tried reverse domain name hijacking in a complaint over menaspeakers.com, according to Westmore. The panel said the company filed even though the domain was registered six years before the business launched and did not show bad-faith registration, according to Westmore.

mogul.com sold for $1,300,000 on 2026-10-21 according to Westmore data. Westmore data ranks it as the No. 4 reported sale of 2026 overall and the No. 4 .com sale of the year.

A CAC panel ordered the transfer of squaredusa.com to SNA HOLDING INC. on 2026-10-26, according to Westmore data. Westmore data says the panel found the domain targeted the SQUARE D mark through an impersonating commercial website that linked users to purchase pages.

ICANN has started testing a system that would let authenticated law-enforcement agencies use its Registration Data Request Service to seek non-public WHOIS data in urgent cases, according to Westmore. The test currently involves the FBI and Interpol and is aimed at requests tied to threats to life, critical infrastructure, or child exploitation, according to Westmore.

Titan said it has signed a strategic partnership with Squarespace that makes Essential Email by Titan available to Squarespace customers in four launch markets, according to Westmore. Westmore reported the deal, combined with Titan's existing distribution, will put Titan in front of 40% of all newly registered domains worldwide.

Treasury.com, a high-value .com, now redirects to Stripe.com/treasury after recent registrar, nameserver and DNS changes led observers to suspect a Stripe acquisition, according to Westmore. The forwarding move is the first public use tied to the domain since the ownership change signals surfaced earlier this week.

Verisign told investors this week that its total cost to acquire the .web top-level domain reached $171.4 million, according to Westmore and a company SEC filing it cited. The disclosure lands just before Verisign’s planned mid-December sunrise and a limited registration period that could determine whether the long-delayed asset earns back its cost.

Verisign reported record third-quarter .com and .net registration activity and said it plans to open a .web trademark sunrise in mid-December, according to Westmore. The update matters because it pairs stronger demand in the legacy namespace with a concrete launch timetable for a long-delayed new gTLD that could affect defensive registrations and buyer budgets in early 2027.

ICANN on October 26 posted a termination notice for .nissay, adding another brand TLD to the list of 2012-round dot-brands being shut down, according to Westmore. The move landed the same day Westmore reported that ICANN has received at least 345 dot-brand applications in the 2026 round despite roughly 150 earlier cancellations.

Verisign plans to discontinue third-level .name registrations and second-level email forwarding on February 15, 2027, according to Westmore, after ICANN approved the change through two Registry Services Evaluation Process requests earlier this year. The move affects long-held personal web and email addresses and raises account-migration and impersonation concerns for registrants and brand owners.

ICANN’s October 7 publication of 1,615 applications in the 2026 new gTLD round, including 263 contention sets, shifted attention from application volume to which strings may survive replacement periods, objections and eventual ICANN auctions, according to Westmore. For domain buyers, founders and brand owners, the key takeaway is that bidder counts show where applicants are