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Uniregistry
IndustryInternet
Founded2012; 12 years ago (2012)
FounderFrank Schilling
HeadquartersGovernors Square, Unit 3-110
PO Box 1361
Grand Cayman KY1-1108,
Cayman Islands
Number of locations
2
  • Newport Beach, California: 2161 San Joaquin Hills Road, Newport Beach, California 92660
Products§ Top-level domains[1]
OwnerGoDaddy
Website

Uniregistry is a large retail domain name registrar and web services provider; as well as a domain name registry that administers generic top-level domains. In February 2013, the related company Uniregistrar Corporation became an ICANN-accredited registrar and launched under the licensed Uniregistry brand name in 2014. Uniregistry's acquisition by GoDaddy was announced in February 2020.[2][3]

History

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Uniregistry Corporation was officially founded in 2012 by Frank Schilling, one of the largest private domain name portfolio owners in the world,[4][5] and was registered in the Cayman Islands. However, the domain Uniregistry.com was registered six years earlier and the company filed an intent to use the name in the Cayman Islands in 2010. Trademark applications for the "Uniregistry" mark and its stylized "U" logo were filed in 2012.[6] That year, Schilling invested $60 million and applied for 54 new top-level domains.[7][8][9] Uniregistrar Corporation became an ICANN-accredited registrar in February 2013. In January 2014, Uniregistry Inc. became a subsidiary in Newport Beach, California to house a West Coast service and support team.[10][11] The registrar began operating under the licensed Uniregistry brand name in 2014.[4] Uniregistry's registry infrastructure was designed by Internet Systems Consortium (ISC)[5] and Uniregistry subsequently purchased its infrastructure in 2013.

Founder Frank Schilling

In February 2014, the company launched its first two top-level domains, .sexy and .tattoo.[12] That same month, Uniregistry reached a private agreement with Donuts whereby Uniregistry would own the extensions .audio and .juegos ("games", in Spanish) and Donuts would own .auction, .furniture, and .gratis. The two companies remain at odds over control of the top-level domain .shopping.[13] Uniregistry won .click, .hosting, and .property in April 2014.[14][15] The company launched the top-level domains .audio, .hiphop, and .juegos in September 2014.[16] It acquired .flowers for an undisclosed amount that same month, beating out Donuts, Minds + Machines, and 1-800-Flowers.[17] In November 2014, the registrar began accepting the cryptocurrency Topcoin to pay for domain name registrations, inbound transfers, and renewals across its extensions.[18] The company released .click, .diet, .help, .hosting, and .property during the Thanksgiving holiday week in 2014.[19][20]

Uniregistry acquired .lol in January 2015,[21] .mom in March,[22][23] and .game in May 2015.[24] Uniregistry launched .photo and .pics in April.[25] In May 2015, the company and XYZ announced their joint operation of Cars Registry Limited, a company that would operate three top-level domains related to the automotive industry: .auto, .car, and .cars.[26] Uniregistry had won .auto and .cars in 2014,[27] while XYZ acquired .car from Google for an undisclosed amount in 2015.[28][29] The company launched a new version of its registry website in August 2015.[30] In September 2015, Uniregistry agreed to take over management of the extension .hiv and continue fundraising and raising awareness of HIV/AIDS. .hiv became the first open charitable top-level domain in 2014. Schilling has said of the extension:

By assuming the registry operations of .hiv, we are taking our core skills and putting them at the service of one of the most urgent challenges of humankind. The United Nations has reconfirmed the opportunities to end the global AIDS epidemic within our lifetime. At Uniregistry, we want to be a part of this ambitious endeavor. Of course, Uniregistry is a for-profit company. But with .hiv, we act as a social enterprise. It is the social mission that will guide the operation of this special TLD.[31]

Uniregistry has been the lead sponsor for NamesCon, the domain name industry's largest conference, for at least three years.[32]

Top-level domains

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Uniregistry is the domain name registry for the following generic top-level domains:[33][34]

  • .audio,[35] launched September 3, 2014
  • .auto[36]
  • .blackfriday,[37][38] launched July 8, 2014
  • .car[39]
  • .cars[40]
  • .christmas,[41] launched July 8, 2014
  • .click,[42] launched November 25, 2014
  • .diet,[43] launched November 25, 2014
  • .flowers,[44] launched April 7, 2015
  • .game,[45] launched May 17, 2016
  • .gift,[46][47][48] launched April 15, 2014
  • .guitars,[49] launched April 15, 2014
  • .help,[50] launched November 25, 2014
  • .hiphop,[51] launched September 3, 2014
  • .hiv[31]
  • .hosting,[52] launched November 25, 2014
  • .juegos,[53] launched September 3, 2014
  • .link,[54] launched April 15, 2014
  • .lol,[55] launched August 11, 2015
  • .mom[56]
  • .photo,[57] launched April 15, 2014
  • .pics,[58][59] launched April 15, 2014
  • .property,[60] launched November 25, 2014
  • .sexy,[61][62][63] launched February 25, 2014
  • .tattoo,[12][64][65] launched February 25, 2014

More than 17,200 .audio domains have been registered as of September 2014, although 16,000 of these were short domain names registered by Schilling's own North Sound Names (NSN).[66] NSN is a subsidiary of Uniregistry Corporation that sells the premium names in Uniregistry's top-level domains direct to consumers. It also sells the domain names it manages through the Uniregistry Market, which launched on June 16, 2015. The Uniregistry Market EPP extension is available to all Uniregistry-accredited registrars.[67] As of September 24, 2014, more than 10,800 .blackfriday domains were registered, with 400 registered within the first day of general availability. NSN registered 10,000 .blackfriday domains in September 2014, along with 5,000 .hiphop domains.[68] 500 .hiphop domains were registered prior to NSN's large purchase.[69] 400 non-Uniregistry .christmas domains were registered on its first day of general availability.[70] More than 10,000 .click domains were registered on the first day of general availability (outlets initially reported 3,800 registrations, but Schilling confirmed the higher figure).[71][72][73] Uniregistry only held back single-character domain names. This strategy differs from the registry's previous launches in which Schilling's company registered thousands of domains.[74]

On April 15, 2014, the number of domains under Uniregistry's management increased by 50,735 after NSN registered large numbers of .gift, .link (19,945), .photo, .pics, .sexy and .tattoo domains. This increase caused the total number of generic top-level domains registered to pass the 500,000 threshold.[75] More than 8,000 .photo and 4,000 .pics domains were registered by July 2014.[25] As of April 2014, the extensions .link, .sexy, and .tattoo have been registered more than 20,000, 12,318, and 5,932 times, respectively, though these figures include Uniregistry's activated reserved domains.[76] As of February 2015, .diet, .help, .hosting, and .property have been registered 14,596, 21,630, 11,609, and 38,464 times, respectively. The extensions were registered 787, 1,908, 1,197, and 1,490 times, respectively, on the first day of general availability; NSN later registered 13,268, 17,988, 9,329, and 35,991 domains, respectively.[72][77] FTD purchased the domain Pro.flowers for $50,000 in 2015.[78][79]

Registrar services and tools

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In 2015, the registrar surpassed 1.3 million domains under management.[80][81] Bulk tools offered by the company include: "Domain Tracker" for monitoring domain expiration dates; two-step account verification for enhanced security; cloud storage for organizing domain attachments; and optional integration with DomainNameSales, which allows users to link their DNS and Uniregistry accounts.[80] The company began offering an affiliate program called "Uniregistry Affiliate Plus" in 2014.[82]

The registrar along with Domain Name Sales (DNS) was acquired by GoDaddy in April 2020.

See also

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References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Extensions". Uniregistry. Retrieved Aug 3, 2018.
  2. ^ "Better together: Uni joins GoDaddy - Uniregistry Blog". uniregistry.com. Retrieved 2020-02-12.
  3. ^ Nicks, Paul (2020-02-10). "Uniregistry's registrar and marketplace joining GoDaddy to bring domain investing to the next level". GoDaddy Blog. Retrieved 2020-02-12.
  4. ^ a b Berkens, Michael (March 19, 2014). "Frank Schilling's Registrar Is Live; The Good and the Bad". TheDomains.com. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  5. ^ a b Berkens, Michael (June 10, 2012). "Frank Schilling Unveils His New gTLD Company: Uniregistry.com". The Domains. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  6. ^ Allemann, Andrew (July 10, 2012). "Plans for Frank Schilling's Uniregistry go way back". Domain Name Wire. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  7. ^ Sloan, Paul (June 12, 2012). "Here comes the greatest Internet landgrab in history". CNET. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  8. ^ "Uniregistry Corp. applies for 54 new top-level domains: .store, .news, .deal, .auto". TLD Magazine. June 13, 2012. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  9. ^ Berkens, Michael (June 13, 2012). "Here Are the 54 New gTLD's That Frank Schilling's Uniregistry Applied For". TheDomains.com. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  10. ^ Murphy, Kevin (February 5, 2013). "Frank Schilling's Uniregistry gets accredited as a registrar". Domain Incite. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  11. ^ "Frank Schilling's Uniregistry to open office in Newport Beach, CA in 2014". DomainNameNews.com. October 23, 2013. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  12. ^ a b Allemann, Andrew (February 24, 2014). "Frank Schilling's first two top level domain names available tomorrow". Domain Name Wire. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
  13. ^ Murphy, Kevin (February 21, 2014). "Uniregistry doing private new gTLD auctions? Company deals with Donuts on five strings". Domain Incite. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  14. ^ Murphy, Kevin (April 30, 2014). "Millions spent on new gTLDs as 11 auctions settled". Domain Incite. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  15. ^ Allemann, Andrew (April 30, 2014). "New TLD auction prices hitting highs: Minds + Machines, Uniregistry, Donuts all win some domains". Domain Name Wire. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
  16. ^ Allemann, Andrew (September 2, 2014). "New TLDs this week: Schilling launches .hiphop, Donuts charges your .creditcard". Domain Name Wire. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  17. ^ Murphy, Kevin (September 10, 2014). "Uniregistry beats 1-800-FLOWERS.COM to .flowers". Domain Incite. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  18. ^ Silver, Elliott (November 13, 2014). "Uniregistry Now Accepting Topcoin". DomainInvesting.com. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  19. ^ Allemann, Andrew (November 24, 2014). "This week's new TLDs: 5 from Frank Schilling". Domain Name Wire. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  20. ^ Berkens, Michael (November 25, 2014). "Uniregistry Launches 5 New gTLD's Today". TheDomains.com. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
  21. ^ Murphy, Kevin (January 6, 2015). "Schilling laughing as Uniregistry beats Google to .lol". Domain Incite. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  22. ^ Berkens, Michael (March 16, 2015). "Donuts Wins the New Domain Extension .Family Beating Google and Uniregistry the Winner of .Mom". TheDomains.com. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
  23. ^ Sparkes, Matthew (March 18, 2015). "Who's buying the new top-level domains?". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
  24. ^ Berkens, Michael (May 12, 2015). "Donuts Gets .Games; Uniregistry Got .Game". TheDomains.com. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  25. ^ a b Berkens, Michael (23 July 2014). "gTLD's: Now It Gets Interesting: .Pics, .Pictures, Photo, .Photos". TheDomains.com. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
  26. ^ Negari, Daniel (May 18, 2015). "XYZ and Uniregistry Announce Joint Venture to Launch .Cars, .Car, and .Auto" (Press release). Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands: KCEN-TV. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  27. ^ Berkens, Michael (September 24, 2014). "Uniregistry Wins .Auto; Donuts Wins .Memorial; Afilias Loses IDN .信息 Which May Mean Info". TheDomains.com. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  28. ^ Murphy, Kevin (May 18, 2015). "XYZ and Uniregistry acquire .car from Google, launch joint venture". Domain Incite. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  29. ^ McCarthy, Kieren (May 18, 2015). "Google sells .car, walks away from generic domain names". The Register. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  30. ^ Zournas, Konstantinos (August 24, 2015). "Uniregistry Launches New Website (.Game and .Cars Coming Soon!)". OnlineDomain.com. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  31. ^ a b Goldstein, David (September 28, 2015). "Uniregistry Takes Over .HIV gTLD Continuing Fundraising Goals". Domain Pulse. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  32. ^ "Uniregistry Signs on as Lead NamesCon Sponsor". NamesCon. August 5, 2015. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  33. ^ "Our Extensions". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  34. ^ "Launch Schedule". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  35. ^ ".audio: Where people go to listen". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  36. ^ ".auto: Drive your brand". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  37. ^ Allemann, Andrew (November 29, 2013). "Will companies use .BlackFriday domain names?". Domain Name Wire. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  38. ^ ".blackfriday: The best deals online". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  39. ^ ".car: Drive your brand". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  40. ^ ".cars: Drive your brand". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  41. ^ "christmas: Bringing good cheer online". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  42. ^ ".click: Inspire action". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  43. ^ ".diet: The most nutritious domain yet". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  44. ^ ".flowers: Bursting with color". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  45. ^ ".game: It's on". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  46. ^ Berkens, Michael (April 8, 2014). "Uniregistry Gets 300+ Sunrise .Gift Registrations As J&J Goes in Heavy But Don't Buy Me These". TheDomains.com. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  47. ^ Murphy, Kevin (October 19, 2013). "Donuts and Uniregistry sign more new gTLD contracts". Domain Incite. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  48. ^ ".gift: A place for giving". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  49. ^ ".guitars: It's time to change your strings". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  50. ^ ".help: Find your peace of mind". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  51. ^ ".hiphop: It's more than music". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  52. ^ ".hosting: The backbone of the Internet". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  53. ^ ".juegos: Preparados. Listos. A jugar". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  54. ^ ".lol: It's not just cats". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  55. ^ ".mom: The mother of all domain names". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  56. ^ ".photo: The world through your lens". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  57. ^ Berkens, Michael (April 6, 2014). "Uniregistry Reserved and Sunrise .Pics Domains You Won't Be Able to Register". TheDomains.com. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
  58. ^ ".pics: Where pictures tell your story". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  59. ^ ".property: A solid foundation". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  60. ^ Murphy, Kevin (February 21, 2014). "100 .sexy names reserved by Uniregistry". Domain Incite. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
  61. ^ Hackney, Raymond (February 24, 2014). "Godaddy Is Not Bringing .Sexy Back; Nor Are 9 of the Top 10 Registrars". TheDomains.com. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
  62. ^ ".sexy: The Internet just got sexier". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  63. ^ Berkens, Michael (February 23, 2014). "Your.Tattoo: The 100 Domains Uniregistry Reserved for .Tattoo". TheDomains.com. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
  64. ^ ".tattoo: What's up your sleeve?". Uniregistry. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  65. ^ Berkens, Michael (September 24, 2014). "Frank Schilling's North Sound Names Registers 16,000 Domains in Uniregistry's .Audio New gTLD". TheDomains.com. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  66. ^ Holmes, Kirsty (June 17, 2015). "New gTLD Updates: Release of Uniregistry Market Premium Names, Release of 2-character Donuts domains postponed, New Donuts Sunrises (.movie, .coupons, .soccer, .fyi and .mba) and .frogans update". Com Laude. Retrieved November 13, 2015.
  67. ^ Berkens, Michael (September 24, 2014). "Frank Schilling's North Sound Names Registers 10,000 Domains in Uniregistry's .BlackFriday". TheDomains.com. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  68. ^ Berkens, Michael (September 24, 2014). "Frank Schilling's North Sound Names Registers 5,000 Domains in Uniregistry's .Hiphop New gTLD". TheDomains.com. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  69. ^ Berkens, Michael (July 9, 2014). "Updated: Christmas in July? Not So Much; 1st Day Totals .Christmas 422; BlackFriday 401". TheDomains.com. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  70. ^ Allemann, Andrew (November 26, 2014). ".Click's 3,800 domains: Good or bad?". Domain Name Wire. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  71. ^ a b Berkens, Michael (November 26, 2014). "1st New gTLD Totals: .Click 3,779; .Help 1,908; .Property 1,490; .Hosting 1,197: .Diet 787". TheDomains.com. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  72. ^ Berkens, Michael (November 26, 2014). "Uniregistry: .Click new gTLD Generated Over 10,000 Registrations in First 24 Hours". TheDomains.com. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  73. ^ Allemann, Andrew (November 20, 2014). "Frank Schilling changes strategy for .Click launch". Domain Name Wire. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  74. ^ Murphy, Kevin (April 16, 2014). "New gTLD domains top 500,000 as Schilling goes on parking spree". Domain Incite. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  75. ^ Allemann, Andrew (April 16, 2014). "Uniregistry activates thousands of reserved domains per TLD". Domain Name Wire. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  76. ^ Zournas, Konstantinos (February 2, 2015). "Uniregistry Registers 76,000+ Domain Names of .Property, .Help, .Diet and .Hosting". OnlineDomain.com. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  77. ^ Berkens, Michael (June 15, 2015). "Uniregistry Announces Sale of Pro.Flowers for $50K to FTD". TheDomains.com. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  78. ^ Zournas, Konstantinos (June 16, 2015). "Uniregistry Sells the Domain Pro.Flowers for $50,000". OnlineDomain.com. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  79. ^ a b "How one company is making domain names 'sexy'". Business Insider. Axel Springer SE. June 2, 2015. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  80. ^ Allemann, Andrew (September 4, 2015). "Uniregistry continues to shine in .Com Winners and Losers". Domain Name Wire. Retrieved November 23, 2013.
  81. ^ Zournas, Konstantinos (April 4, 2014). "Uniregistry Starts New Domain Name Affiliate Program". OnlineDomain.com. Retrieved November 23, 2015.

Further reading

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