It is only mid-January, but there is already information about the first gTLD that might disappear this year. The dishonor goes to the new domain .WHOSWHO. ICANN officially announced that it had not been receiving dues from Who’s Who Registry for several months. The registry has not been responding to private compliance outreach either. The company has a month to pay up, or the registration contract may be terminated.
Actually, ICANN’s requests did not go unanswered. According to Domain Incite, last November Who’s Who Registry CEO John McCabe wrote to ICANN. The letter said that the annual fee of $25,000 was too onerous for the registry. McCabe insisted that the fees should be reduced, at least for registries with no abuse that comply with all ICANN’s rules.
Unfortunately, McCabe’s reasoning does not hold water. The domain opened for registration four years ago, and, as of today, it has 100 domains under management at the last count, once you ignore all the domains owned by the registry itself. This explains why there is no abuse. However, it also exposes the failure of the chosen business model. The domain was registered to mimic the once-popular Who’s Who? books, which contain brief biographies of notable public figures, but, with Wikipedia and Google at hand, there is no need for such a resource.
