News came last week that Donuts agreed to purchase Afilias’ registry assets, which became a major event for the entire domain industry: Afilias is a registry of over 20 gTLDs and is a technical operator of over 200 domain zones. Donuts, in turn, manages the most new gTLDs, and the merging of assets means that Donuts will control more than 450 domain zones.
Domain Incite received a brief comment from Donuts boss Akram Atallah (former President of ICANN's Global Domains Division). He said that the deal was not a result of long negotiations between the companies. Afilias had for some time been looking for a buyer for its assets and made proposals to various companies. Donuts took an interest in the offer. The value of the acquisition has not been disclosed.
Akram Atallah also said that Donuts would not purchase Afilias’ registry business and its division for mobile software development. In addition, the parties agreed that Donuts would have no concern with the outcome of the independent review of the auction for the management rights for the new domain .WEB. The auction was won by NU DOT CO LLC, which paid $135 million for the domain. Soon it became known that the purchase was completely financed by Verisign. Afilias, which also bid for .WEB, believed that the auction violated ICANN rules and demanded an independent review of the results. If the review finds Afilias’ claim to be true, Afilias would receive control of the domain, not Donuts.
Akram Atallah also noted that he considers concerns that the merger of Donuts and Afilias could create a monster on the domain market groundless. He emphasized that even after the deal closes (plans call for doing that before year end), Donuts will have fewer than 15 million domain names under management, a small part of what it registered in .COM.
