GoDaddy, the largest domain registry in the world, announced that it had acquired Neustar on its official website, which means that GoDaddy now controls the US, Indian and Colombian ccTLDs, .US, .IN and .CO, the .BIZ gTLD and over 200 new gTLDs (most of which are brand-dot domains) with a total of about 12 million domain names. The merged organization will be called GoDaddy Registry and will be managed by Nicolai Bezsonoff, currently Senior Vice President and General Manager of Neustar's Registry business.
The domain community’s reaction is split, understandably. When a company unites the functions of a registry and a domain registrar, a conflict of interest and competitive advantages can result. It is easy to imagine a situation where a registry can offer “its” registrar better terms for registering domain names than others. With GoDaddy being the largest company in the registration market, the situation could result in a monopoly.
However, GoDaddy’s representatives insist that they will take all the necessary measures to avoid this. In particular, GoDaddy Registry will not give GoDaddy any special discounts or terms; its departments will be prohibited from exchanging information that can be used as a source of unfair competitive advantage, and both divisions will be audited for strict compliance. GoDaddy also quickly dispelled fears that the acquisition of Neustar would result in a price increase in domain zones and, above all, in the .BIZ domain. The company stated that, on the contrary, it will look for opportunities to reduce prices in some domain zones. The deal is expected to close this quarter; the cost of the purchase has not been disclosed.
