According to Domain Incite, Afilias’s recently published financial report shows that last April, the company paid $70 million to Internet Computer Bureau, which ran the .IO, .SH and .AC ccTLDs. Earlier, Afilias reported that it now operates these TLDs.
Experts conclude that the company bought the .IO TLD, a promising and actively developing ccTLD.
Well-known domain specialist Kevin Murphy carried out a small investigation. It turns out that a company nobody heard about, Top Level Domain Registry, had recently become the administrator of .IO. Murphy believes that Afilias simply bought the company that ran .IO, IO Top Level Domain Registry, Cable & Wireless, which belongs to Cable & Wireless, a telecommunications operator that provides internet access to remote parts of the world, including islands.
Recently, .IO has become popular with technology startups as an alternative to .COM. According to the report, the growing number of registrations in .IO was one of the main reasons for Afilias’s revenue increase last year.
