Internet Naming Co (INC) announced plans to restart the two domain zones it manages. As you know, a year ago, this company acquired the rights to manage nine new gTLDs - .click, .country, .help, .forum, .hiv, .love, .property, .sexy and .trust - from their former Uniregistry registry. Very large changes will affect two domain zones - .FORUM and .COUNTRY.
The .FORUM currently has only a few hundred registrations. This is not at all surprising when you consider that the cost of an annual registration is $1,000. This price was inherited by INC from Uniregistry, but the new registry considered this amount to be clearly excessive. Already this week, the restart of the domain will start, which will open with a period of priority registration for copyright holders. Public enrollment with annual enrollment now $39 will begin on May 17. In addition, the registry promises to open for registration a lot of previously reserved premium names, including those consisting of 1-3 characters. It is expected that such measures will help revive the domain zone.
With respect to the .COUNTRY, the registry is taking exactly the opposite step. The registration fee, currently $20 per year, will be increased 100 times to $2,000. The decision is related to the complete repositioning of the domain: now it is advertised as a domain for musicians and music fans in the country style. What will be the new purpose of the domain zone is still unknown: the restart should start this year, but the timing has not yet been announced. The Domain Incite cites the head of Internet Naming Co, Shayan Rostam (formerly, by the way, the development director of Uniregistry) who promised that the previous registration renewal price would be maintained for existing registrants. Currently, a little less than 4,000 names are registered in the domain.
