The new German gTLD, .berlin, has more than doubled its registration count within one day, from 67,347 domains on June 16 to 115,966 the next day. This has made .berlin the number two new gTLD again after .xyz, which has 144,474 names.
However, the methods used to achieve this result are hardly impeccable. The dotBERLIN organization announced that it was celebrating 50,000 registrations with a five-day offer during which registrars could sell the names for no more than €5.55 ($7.53). But there is evidence that some registrars were actually offering them for free.
One such registrar was InternetX, which took the vast majority of all the new .berlin registrations on June 17. Out of the 61,000 names registered via InternetX-owned registrars, over 23,000 have been registered to a single domainer, which appears to be an InternetX reseller. It should be said that a week earlier, a record growth of .xyz names was ensured by Network Solutions offering the domains to its customers for free.
