ICANN has included the gTLD .DESI into its Emergency Back-End Registry Operator (EBERO) search program. As previously reported, Registry Desi Networks notified ICANN back in July that it was no longer able to perform its duties. The case cannot but be considered extremely rare: if the number of “refused” brand domains has already reached 120, then for public commercial domains this is only the second precedent - in 2021, the Atrgon registry, which managed the .WED, admitted its insolvency.
As Domain Name Wire notes when reporting this news, there are currently about 1,900 registrations in the .DESI. This is quite a bit for a public domain delegated back in April 2014. Especially considering that the word desi in English refers to people from India and neighboring countries living abroad, and the number of this diaspora is extremely large. Also noteworthy is the fact that a significant part of the domain names still registered in the .DESI are used for pornographic websites. This does not have the best effect on the reputation of the domain zone and can significantly complicate the search for a temporary operator, and even more so for a registry that will consider it possible to take the domain under its control on a permanent basis.
