.name Termination
3 September 2026
Nearly twenty-five years ago I registered neil.fraser.name to provide a stable presence on the Internet. It has been the home of this website, my email address, and a server for APIs. It predates YouTube, Facebook, and smart phones. Minutes after my daughter was born, I also registered beverly.fraser.name.
On 15 April 2026 Verisign proposed the destruction of the entire 3rd level of the '.name' hierarchy in order to simplify their administration. Astonishingly, on 28 July 2026 ICANN approved this action. I found out about this a few days ago when my registrar emailed me.
Now, it's worth pausing for a moment to discuss what '3rd-level domains' are. Many people will be familiar with shady operators selling domains like *.uk.co. In that case it's some random guy who bought the 'uk' domain from the country of Columbia, then resells third-levels. If that operator disappears, then so do all the domains he sold. As a result, 3rd-level domains have gotten a dubious reputation. However, '.name' is completely different. It was setup exclusively as a 3rd-level operation. One registers xxx.yyy.name from any registrar and there is a full whois record. Exactly like *.ny.us, or *.co.uk.
One of my original reasons for choosing '.name' was that it was run by Global Name Registry -- more specifically, it was not run by Verisign. I had history with Verisign and did not trust them. Unfortunately, Verisign acquired Global Name Registry a few years later. This mistrust was validated by the numerous lies Verisign included in their above proposal to ICANN.
So what does this mean? First, this website vanishes in February. Despite the fact that it's registered and paid for until 2040. Second, my email address also disappears. Third, all the IoT devices that use services on this domain become bricks. Basically, I disappear from the Internet.
But it gets much worse. Once the 3rd-level domains are terminated, it is assumed that the now vacant 2nd-level domains will become available for registration. Should someone (other than me) scoop up fraser.name they would be able to recreate and control neil.fraser.name. They'd be able to hijack hundreds of accounts that are linked to that address. They could commit code with my authentication. They could seize control of IoT devices. There is no way to enumerate all accounts (online and offline) which have been opened using this email address over the past quarter century.
I'm just one of 22,000 people who will lose their domains. This is going to be fun. Time to lawyer up...
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