Freenom is returning to the domain market after a pause which lasted for two and a half years. Before that, it attracted a lot of criticism for its profitable, albeit questionable business model from both a moral and a legal perspective. It consisted of offering domain names for free and then seizing them to monetize traffic either after their registration expired or when a domain name was suspended for abusive practices.
This model enabled spammers and cyber criminals to register many single-use domains and dealt a serious blow to the reputation of domain zone under Freenom’s administration. They included the ccTLDs of Equatorial Guinea (.gq), the Central African Republic (.cf), Mali (.ml) and Gabon (.ga). However, it was the ccTLD for Tokelau .tk which was the jewel in its crown with over 40 million registered domains at its peak.
Freenom’s business model came under intense scrutiny and has been facing a lot of criticism since the second half of the 2010s, and it was Meta, which is designated as an extremist organization and is banned in Russia, which dealt the final blow. In early 2023, Meta filled a $500 million cybersquatting lawsuit against Freenom. Shortly after that, Mali and Gabon moved their ccTLDs to other operators, while ICANN terminated Freenom’s accreditation as a domain name registry.
Freenom settled its dispute with Meta out of court, and went on to announce its decision to leave the domain market. It is now about to make a comeback with a different business model. According to Domain Incite, the company still operates ccTLDs of Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic, and Tokelau, but would no longer give away domain names for free by charging a basic fee of EUR 8.22 per year for registering a domain name. However, it will also offer premium pricing for certain domains. For example, football.tk is being offered for EUR 86.08 and whiskey.tk is listed at EUR 1,739.13.
