Afilias

Last updated
Afilias, Inc.
Afilias logo.svg
Type of site
 Subsidiary
FoundedOctober 2000 (2000-10)
Dissolved June 2022 (2022-06)
Successor(s) Identity Digital
Key peopleHal Lubsen, Ram Mohan, Roland LaPlante, Philipp Grabensee, Ken Stubbs, Jonathan Robinson, Steve Heflin, Scott Hemphill
Industry Web domain registration
Parent Donuts (since December 2020)
URL www.afilias.info

Afilias, Inc. was a US corporation that was the registry operator of the .info, .mobi and .pro top-level domain, service provider for registry operators of .org, .ngo, .lgbt, .asia, .aero, and a provider of domain name registry services for countries around the world, including .MN (Mongolia), .AG (Antigua and Barbuda), .AU (Australia), .BM (Bermuda), .BZ (Belize), .AC (Ascension Island), .GI (Gibraltar), .IO (British Indian Ocean Territory) .ME (Montenegro), .PR (Puerto Rico), .SC (the Seychelles), .SH (Saint Helena), and .VC (St. Vincent and the Grenadines). Afilias also provided ancillary support to other domains, including .SG (Singapore), .LA (Laos), and .HN (Honduras). It was merged into Identity Digital in 2022.

Contents

History

Afilias was formed in October 2000 by a group of 19 major domain name registrars. [1] [2] CEO Hal Lubsen, CTO Ram Mohan, [3] CMO Roland LaPlante [4] and Compliance Officer Steven Pack were the founding management team (2001).

In February 2010, Afilias acquired mTLD Top Level Domain Ltd., the sponsoring organization and registry operator for the .mobi top-level domain (known publicly as dotMobi). While dotMobi continues to operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary, Afilias is now the registered Registry Operator for the .mobi domain. [5]

In December 2012, Afilias acquired registryPro, the sponsoring organization and registry operator for the .pro top-level domain. While RegistryPro continues to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary, Afilias is now the registered Registry Operator for the .pro domain. [6]

In October 2015, Afilias acquired domain name registrar 101domain, with the registrar's CEO Wolfgang Reile stepping down and its COO and CFO Anthony M. Beltran leading operations under Afilias. [7] [8]

In December 2017, Afilias was chosen by auDA to supply .au registry services. Afilias opened its Melbourne Australia branch to do this. [9] Under Ram Mohan's leadership, Afilias successfully completed the historic transition on July 1, 2018, [10] setting the Guinness World Records title for largest migration of an internet top-level domain in a single transition following its transfer of 3,153,979 .au domain names on Sunday, July 1, 2018. [11]

In November 2020, it was announced that Afilias was acquired by Donuts, the domain name registry operator. [12] In 2022, Afilias and Donuts were merged and brought under a single company, Identity Digital. [13]

Afilias was headquartered in Horsham, Pennsylvania, United States, with engineering and operations offices in Toronto, Canada, Dublin, Ireland, Beijing, China, Melbourne, Australia and New Delhi, India.

List of Afilias-operated domains

DomainOwned or operated?WHOIS creation date
.adultoperated
.aero operated
.ag operated
.archiowned2014-03-20
.asia operated
.au operated
.betowned2015-07-16
.bioowned2014-05-15
.blackowned2014-03-20
.blueowned2014-01-23
.bz operated
.ecooperated
.gi operated
.globaloperated
.greenowned2014-06-12
.info owned2001-06-26
.kimowned2013-12-19
.lc operated
.lgbtowned2014-06-26
.llcowned2018-02-16
.lottoowned2014-06-05
.ltdaoperated
.me operated
.mobi owned2005-10-17
.ngooperated
.ongoperated
.onloperated
.org operated
.organicowned2014-05-29
.petowned2015-07-16
.pinkowned2013-12-19
.pokerowned2014-09-04
.pornoperated
.postoperated
.pr operated
.pro owned2002-05-08
.promoowned2015-12-18
.redowned2014-01-16
.richoperated
.sc operated
.sexoperated
.shikshaowned2014-01-16
.skiowned2015-05-14
.srloperated
.vc operated
.vegasoperated
.voteowned2014-02-13
.votoowned2014-02-13
.xxx operated

Mobile and web services

Awards and honors

See also

Related Research Articles

A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in lower levels, it is the last part of the domain name, that is, the last non-empty label of a fully qualified domain name. For example, in the domain name www.example.com, the top-level domain is .com. Responsibility for management of most top-level domains is delegated to specific organizations by the ICANN, an Internet multi-stakeholder community, which operates the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and is in charge of maintaining the DNS root zone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.info</span> Generic top-level domain

.info is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. The name is derived from information, although registration requirements do not prescribe any particular purpose.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internationalized domain name</span> Type of Internet domain name

An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that contains at least one label displayed in software applications, in whole or in part, in non-Latin script or alphabet or in the Latin alphabet-based characters with diacritics or ligatures. These writing systems are encoded by computers in multibyte Unicode. Internationalized domain names are stored in the Domain Name System (DNS) as ASCII strings using Punycode transcription.

AusRegistry was a Melbourne, Australia based company that specialised in domain name registry services.

Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last level of every fully qualified domain name. They are called generic for historical reasons; initially, they were contrasted with country-specific TLDs in RFC 920.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.pro</span>

The domain name pro is a generic top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. Its name is derived from professional, indicating its intended use by certified professionals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.io</span> Internet country-code top level domain for the British Indian Ocean Territory

The Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) .io is nominally assigned to the British Indian Ocean Territory. The domain is managed by Internet Computer Bureau Ltd, a domain name registry, with registrar services provided by Name.com.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.lc</span> Internet country code top-level domain for Saint Lucia

.lc is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Saint Lucia, sponsored by the University of Puerto Rico and created on September 3, 1991. The registry is operated by Afilias and markets towards companies structured as LCs, LLCs or PLCs due to the possibility of a domain hack, such as CompanyName.L.LC and supposedly better names.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.tz</span>

.tz is the Internet country code top-level domain for Tanzania. Through a consultative process, Tanzania Network information Centre (tzNIC), a not-for-profit company was established and registered to administer and manage the operations of the Tanzania country code top-level domain. tzNIC is a limited company with two founding members – the Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority and the Tanzania Internet Service Provider Association.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.mobi</span> Generic top-level Internet domain

The domain name mobi is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. Its name is derived from the adjective mobile.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.web</span>

.web is a proposed top-level domain (TLD) that was created and assigned by an auction process to several bidding companies. It was awarded to Nu Dot Co LLC, which is primarily funded by Verisign.

Name.com is an ICANN accredited domain name registrar and web hosting company based in Denver, Colorado. Since the company was founded in 2003, it has since grown to become one of the leading domain registrars in the world, offering close to 600 Top Level Domains. On its website, Name.com offers a wide range of products and services to help individuals and businesses build and maintain a successful online presence. The company sells DNS domains, web hosting, email services, SSL certificates, and other website products.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.au Domain Administration</span> Manager of the .au domain

.au Domain Administration (auDA) is the policy authority and industry self-regulatory body for the .au domain, which is the country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Australia. It was formed in 1999 to manage the .au ccTLD with the endorsement of the Australian Government and the authority of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). It is a not-for-profit membership organisation that promotes and protects the .au domain space.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Public Interest Registry</span>

Public Interest Registry is a not-for-profit based in Reston, Virginia, created by the Internet Society in 2002 to manage the .ORG top-level domain. It took over operation of .ORG in January 2003 and launched the .NGO and .ONG top-level domains in March 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Top Level Design</span>

Top Level Design is a company in the United States, and the domain name registry for the generic top-level domains .wiki, .ink, and .gay. Ray King serves as its chief executive officer.

Donuts Inc. was a domain name registrar and registry providing paid domain names under 270 new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), as made possible by ICANN's gTLD expansion program, as well as 173 other TLDs including .au (ccTLD) and .org, through its own registry status and contracts between its subsidiaries and other registries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uniregistry</span> Domain name registrar

Uniregistry is a large retail domain name registrar and web services provider; as well as a domain name registry that administers generic top-level domains. In February 2013, the related company Uniregistrar Corporation became an ICANN-accredited registrar and launched under the licensed Uniregistry brand name in 2014. Uniregistry's acquisition by GoDaddy was announced in February 2020.

Universal Acceptance (UA) is a term coined by Ram Mohan to represent the principle that every top-level domain (TLD) should function within all applications regardless of script, number of characters, or how new it is.

Ethos Capital is an American private equity investment firm founded in 2019 in Boston, Massachusetts, in order to make majority and control minority investments in middle-market companies, primarily across North America and Europe. It is best known for attempting and failing to gain control of the .org internet domain.

Identity Digital Inc. is a company with affiliated entities that operate in the domain name industry, including a domain name registrar and registry services provider. The company acquired the registry operator and back-end registry services divisions of Afilias, Inc. in 2020. Both Donuts Inc. and Afilias Inc. were rebranded and brought under the single company brand name Identity Digital in 2022.

References

  1. ↑ "GMO Internet Group History". October 3, 2000. Retrieved February 4, 2016.
  2. ↑ Portal, Presse (October 3, 2000). "World´s Leading Internet Domain Name Registrars Unite to Create Top Level Domain With Global Appeal". Press Relations Presse Portal. Archived from the original on April 8, 2014. Retrieved January 3, 2014.
  3. ↑ "Afilias Appoints Chief Technical Officer to Run First "Thick" Domain Name Registry: .INFO; Former Infonautics executive oversees first global implementation of an XML-based "thick" registry system". The Free Library. October 29, 2001. Archived from the original on April 8, 2014. Retrieved March 19, 2011.
  4. ↑ "Afilias Appoints New Chief Marketing Officer to Build .INFO Brand Worldwide; Former McGraw Hill Exec. to Spearhead Brand & Marketing Strategy for .INFO". The Free Library. July 9, 2001. Archived from the original on April 8, 2014. Retrieved March 16, 2011.
  5. ↑ Hamilton, David (February 11, 2010). "Afilias Acquires .Mobi Domain Registry dotMobi". Web Host Industry Review. Retrieved October 6, 2012.
  6. ↑ LaPlante, Roland (January 17, 2012). "Afilias Acquires Registry Services Corporation, .PRO". Circle ID. Retrieved January 21, 2014.
  7. ↑ Allemann, Andrew (October 16, 2015). "Afilias acquires 101Domain". Domain Name Wire.
  8. ↑ Silver, Elliot (October 16, 2015). "101domain Acquired by Afilias". DomainInvesting.com.
  9. ↑ "Afilias Chosen to Supply .au Registry Services". auDA. 18 Dec 2017. Retrieved 19 Dec 2017.
  10. ↑ ".au Completes Historic Transition to Afilias". MarketWatch. Archived from the original on 2018-09-20. Retrieved 2018-09-20.
  11. ↑ GmbH, finanzen net. "Afilias Sets GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ Title: Largest Migration of an Internet Top-Level Domain in a Single Transition | Markets Insider". markets.businessinsider.com. Retrieved 2019-07-09.
  12. ↑ Neylon, Michele (November 19, 2020). "Donuts to Buy Afilias". InternetNews.me. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
  13. ↑ Allemann, Andrew (2022-06-22). "Donuts rebrands to Identity Digital". Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
  14. ↑ "Afilias Sets GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ Title: Largest Migration of an Internet Top-Level Domain in a Single Transition" . Retrieved 2018-09-20.
  15. ↑ "Afilias selected for CIO 100 award". MarketWatch. Archived from the original on 2018-09-20. Retrieved 2018-09-20.
  16. ↑ "Afilias' Ram Mohan Named to IDG's InfoWorld CTO 25 Awards for DNSSEC Leadership". PRWeb. Retrieved 2018-09-20.
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