Request for Reconsideration
4 October 2026
Last month I discovered that Verisign is planning to terminate this domain, along with all other 22,000 other third-level .name domains. I ended that post with "Time to lawyer up...". Many people have emailed asking if I did indeed lawyer up.
Yes. Yes I did. Our first step is to submit a formal 17 page appeal to ICANN in an attempt to get them to reconsider their approval for this destructive action. ICANN is also getting appeals from lots of other affected people, with more continuing to roll in. They also received a personal letter from a certain Beverly Fraser.
An unknowable (but large) number of victims will only find out about this termination once it happens. Yes, the registrars are sending bulk emails out to the owners, but about half the people I've talked with had the email go to their spam folder. They only found out after reading about it on specialist websites. One woman called up her registrar to question the email, only to be told that it must be a scam and that she should ignore it (hint: it wasn't, and she didn't). Even the domain registrars think this is wrong.
In the past ccTLDs have shut down as a result of their countries dissolving (for example Yugoslavia). Those changes to the domain structure were caused by civil wars. Whereas the case of .name is being caused by nothing more than Verisign's desire to streamline their own administration. This situation is without precedent. If it is allowed to proceed, then it casts a shadow across the perceived stability of all TLDs.
Throughout this entire process, Verisign continues to accept payment for renewing .name domains. As a test I extended my domain, and it went though as normal. Verisign is accepting payment for a service they have no intention of honouring.
If you are affected by this planned termination, please drop me an email.
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