iRegistry GmbH

iRegistry GmbH, which presents itself online as I-REGISTRY® and I-REGISTRY Ltd., is a German company active in the domain name industry as an applicant for and prospective operator of new generic top-level domains (new gTLDs). Its business is built around the expansion of the internet namespace that followed ICANN's June 2011 decision to open a public tender process for new gTLDs. iRegistry applied to ICANN for the extensions it considered most commercially interesting, namely .ONLINE, .ONL, .VIP and .RICH, and it markets itself as a "professional domain solution" for private individuals, companies, domain investors and SEO experts. The company's public positioning is that of a registry rather than a conventional registrar: it seeks to own and operate the registry backend for the strings it applied for, and to offer registrants the chance to reserve desirable names before the extensions went live. On its website it states that, because ICANN's evaluation process meant the first new extensions could only go online at the end of 2013, it was already offering free, non-binding reservations of the domains customers wanted. Its two most prominently presented namespaces are .ONL, described as a general-purpose extension suitable for private or business use including communications, blogs and shops, and .RICH, presented as an exclusive namespace. To support the technical operation of its proposed registries, iRegistry states that it cooperates with established and renowned companies such as Afilias and NCC Group. It also claims a management and staff team with a proven track record and detailed knowledge of the domain name industry, and it says it feels a social responsibility, providing that a portion of revenues from its activities is directed to social purposes. The company operates globally in the sense that domain registries serve the worldwide internet, and its website is published in a wide range of languages including English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Hindi and Arabic. As a corporate entity, iRegistry GmbH is a private company. Public information about its ownership, exact founding date, headquarters address and current executive team is limited, and the brand is best known for its ICANN new gTLD applications rather than for a large portfolio of launched extensions. Its dossier therefore rests mainly on its own corporate communications and on its Wikidata entity record.

iRegistry GmbH's history is closely tied to the liberalisation of the internet's top-level domain namespace. In June 2011, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the body that coordinates the allocation of names and addresses on the internet, decided to extend the namespace for internet domains and to hold a public tender process to introduce new generic top-level domains (new gTLDs). Until then, the generic namespace had been dominated by a small number of familiar extensions such as .com, .net, .org and .info. The new programme promised to allow private individuals, companies, domain investors and SEO experts to register domains under a much wider choice of extensions, and it also opened the possibility of securing names that had long been taken or were available only at high prices on the secondary market. iRegistry seized this opportunity and applied to ICANN for the domain extensions it judged most interesting: .ONLINE, .ONL, .VIP and .RICH. The company positioned itself not merely as a reseller of domains but as a prospective registry operator, responsible for the policy and technical operation of the namespaces it hoped to run. Because ICANN's meticulous evaluation process meant that the first new extensions could go online only at the end of 2013, iRegistry used the intervening period to build awareness and demand, offering interested parties the opportunity to reserve the domains they wanted for free and with no commitment whatsoever. In its public communications, iRegistry presented two of its proposed namespaces in particular detail. .ONL was described as a new domain extension giving private individuals, companies and organisations a range of new options for their personalised internet domain, usable for practically any application for private or business use, including communications, a blog or a shop. .RICH was presented as the most extraordinary namespace on the internet and as a new and exclusive extension. The company also listed .ONLINE and .VIP among the strings for which it had applied. To give confidence in its ability to operate a registry reliably, iRegistry stated that its management and staff team had a proven track record and all the detailed knowledge of the domain name industry required, and that it cooperated with established and renowned companies such as Afilias and NCC Group for the technical aspects of the operation. It further stated that it felt a social responsibility and had provided that a portion of the revenues from its activities would be directed to social purposes. The company's website was published in many languages, reflecting the global nature of the domain market it addressed. The subsequent history of the new gTLD programme was complex, with many applications competing for the same strings and with some applicants withdrawing or forming joint ventures. Public information about which, if any, of iRegistry's applications resulted in a delegated and operating top-level domain is limited, and the company's own site continued to describe the extensions as forthcoming. iRegistry GmbH therefore remains a small, privately held participant in the domain industry, known chiefly for its early applications and its marketing of .ONL and .RICH.

• ICANN decides to extend the internet namespace and hold a public tender for new generic top-level domains.

• iRegistry applies to ICANN for the domain extensions .ONLINE, .ONL, .VIP and .RICH.

• iRegistry offers free, non-binding reservations of desired domains while ICANN evaluation is pending.

• First new gTLD extensions expected to be able to go online at the end of 2013.

Professional domain solution and applicant/operator of new generic top-level domains for individuals, companies, domain investors and SEO experts.

• .ONL

  New domain extension allowing private individuals, companies and organisations new options for personalised internet domains, usable for communications, blogs or shops.

• .RICH

  Presented as the most extraordinary and exclusive namespace on the internet.

• .VIP

  One of the domain extensions for which iRegistry applied to ICANN.

• .ONLINE

  One of the domain extensions for which iRegistry applied to ICANN.

1. 1I-REGISTRY Ltd. - Your Professional Domain Solutioni-registry.com
2. 2I-REGISTRY Ltd. – About usi-registry.com
3. 3iRegistry GmbHwikidata.org