Frank T. Schilling | |
|---|---|
 Photograph by EMG Cayman, 2024 | |
| Born | Frank Taylor Schilling July 29, 1969 Tübingen, Germany |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur, Investor |
| Nationality | Canadian / Caymanian |
| Notable works | Uniregistry, Aphrodise |
| Website | |
| www | |
Frank T. Schilling (born July 29, 1969) is a Canadian and Caymanian entrepreneur. Born in Germany, Schilling grew up in Canada and moved to the Cayman Islands c. 2003 (at the age of 34). [1]
Since the turn of the century, Schilling has been a repeat entrepreneur, investor, technology thought leader and connector. As the founder of the Name Administration Inc. and later Uniregistry, Schilling was behind the management of more than 5,000,000 domain names along with the fastest-growing domain name registrar and aftermarket sales platform in the World. [2]
In 2003, Schilling financed the Caribbean's first ICANN accredited domain name registrar. He joined as a member of the ICANN business constituency and co-founded the non-profit Internet Commerce Association in 2006. [3]
In 2012, Schilling was revealed by CNET as the financial backer of Uniregistry. [1] In 2019, Uniregistry became a top 10 registrar of domain names across new GTLD's and existing CCTLD’s. His registry services platform operated and provided back-end registry services to more than 30 top level domain names. [2]
On February 11, 2020 Godaddy announced that it had acquired the assets of Schilling's Name Administration Inc., as well as the Uniregistry registrar, its secondary marketplace and Uniregistry investments in New York-based Brandsight.com for an undisclosed sum.
Following his success in the domain name industry, Schilling pursued more creative ventures. He is an active angel investor whose fund has early investments in Triller, Desktop.com, and ZoomProp.
Schilling formed GoldFYR Records, an independent music record label with partners Yannick "Vasco Got the Recipe" Powell, and Rico Rolando. GoldFYR endeavored to empower young music artists who would otherwise not have had a voice. Many talented R&B and hip hop musicians including Rico Rolando, Lonney Love, and Teodoro 'Teö' were signed to the label and are still actively growing their music catalogs today.
On June 23, 2021, it was announced that Schilling was the developer behind Port Zeus, the first man-made safe harbour in the Cayman Islands on the island of Cayman Brac. [4] Port Zeus is located in the approximate vicinity where Christopher Columbus discovered the Cayman Islands in 1503.
In 2022, Schilling co-published an independent novel with best-selling economist Andrei Polgar titled Omnia Vincit: The Universe Wants You To Win. This novel touches on the beliefs that shaped his "rags to riches" journey and the lessons that transitioned his pursuit of financial gain toward goals centered in meaning and purpose — and how both intersect.
To honor his Canadian roots, Schilling installed 'Alice,' a 17,000 pound hand-made steel T-rex dinosaur sculpture in the city of Penticton in British Columbia. The sculpture was quickly designated a new cultural landmark in the Okanagan Valley.
In the Summer of 2023, Schilling opened Mykonos Steak Club, a celebratory dining destination in the heart of Seven Mile Beach. He is also the creator of Aphrodise, the delicious Greek sparkling rosé.
Schilling plays himself and his various business interests are presented in Season 1 of the Hulu and Freeform series Grand Cayman: Secrets in Paradise.
He has four children. [3]
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a global multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization head-quartered in the United States responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces and numerical spaces of the Internet, ensuring the Internet's stable and secure operation. ICANN performs the actual technical maintenance work of the Central Internet Address pools and DNS root zone registries pursuant to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) function contract. The contract regarding the IANA stewardship functions between ICANN and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) of the United States Department of Commerce ended on October 1, 2016, formally transitioning the functions to the global multistakeholder community.
In the Internet, a domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. Domain names are used in various networking contexts and for application-specific naming and addressing purposes. In general, a domain name identifies a network domain or an Internet Protocol (IP) resource, such as a personal computer used to access the Internet, or a server computer.
The domain name .org is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) of the Domain Name System (DNS) used on the Internet. The name is truncated from 'organization'. It was one of the original domains established in 1985, and has been operated by the Public Interest Registry since 2003. The domain was originally "intended as the miscellaneous TLD for organizations that didn't fit anywhere else." It is commonly used by non-profit organizations, open-source projects, and communities, but is an open domain that can be used by anyone. The number of registered domains in .org has increased from fewer than one million in the 1990s, to ten million in 2012, and held steady between ten and eleven million since then.
Verisign Inc. is an American company based in Reston, Virginia, that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the .com, .net, and .name generic top-level domains and the .cc country-code top-level domains, and the back-end systems for the .jobs and .edu sponsored top-level domains.
A domain name registrar is a company that manages the reservation of Internet domain names. A domain name registrar must be accredited by a generic top-level domain (gTLD) registry or a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registry. A registrar operates in accordance with the guidelines of the designated domain name registries.
Domain name scams are types of Intellectual property scams or confidence scams in which unscrupulous domain name registrars attempt to generate revenue by tricking businesses into buying, selling, listing or converting a domain name. The Office of Fair Trading in the United Kingdom has outlined two types of domain name scams which are "Domain name registration scams" and "Domain name renewal scams".
Network Solutions, LLC, formerly Web.com is an American-based technology company and a subsidiary of Web.com, the 4th largest .com domain name registrar with over 6.7 million registrations as of August 2018. In addition to being a domain name registrar, Network Solutions provides web services such as web hosting, website design and online marketing, including search engine optimization and pay per click management.
Domain name speculation, popular as domaining in professional jargon, is the practice of identifying and registering or acquiring generic Internet domain names as an investment with the intent of selling them later for a profit.
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.
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is the organization that manages the .ca country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Canada. Its offices are located at 979 Bank Street in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. CIRA sets the policies and agendas that support Canada's internet community and Canada's involvement in international internet governance. It is a member-driven organization with membership open to all that hold a .ca domain. As of March 2023, there were more than 3.3 million active .ca domains.
.ky is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the Cayman Islands. The code was chosen as other possible options had already been allocated. Registration was limited to residents and registered companies in the Cayman Islands with a local address, but this restriction was removed in September 2015. The Cayman Islands also has the international three-letter code CYM and has won a bid to be awarded the .cym domain in a future expansion of the top-level domain space.
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, .BM (Bermuda), .BZ (Belize), .AC, .GI (Gibraltar), .IO .ME (Montenegro), .PR, .SC, .SH, .VC, and .AU (Australia). Afilias also provided ancillary support to other domains, including .SG (Singapore), .LA (Laos), and .HN (Honduras). It was merged into Identity Digital in 2022.
WHOIS is a query and response protocol that is used for querying databases that store an Internet resource's registered users or assignees. These resources include domain names, IP address blocks and autonomous systems, but it is also used for a wider range of other information. The protocol stores and delivers database content in a human-readable format. The current iteration of the WHOIS protocol was drafted by the Internet Society, and is documented in RFC 3912.
Avalanche was a criminal syndicate involved in phishing attacks, online bank fraud, and ransomware. The name also refers to the network of owned, rented, and compromised systems used to carry out that activity. Avalanche only infected computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system.
Domain registration is the process of acquiring a domain name from a domain name registrar.
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.
.club, often stylized as .CLUB and sometimes dot-club, is a top-level domain (TLD). It was proposed in ICANN's new generic top-level domain (gTLD) program, and became available to the general public on May 7, 2014. .Club Domains, LLC is the domain name registry for the string.
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.
.Tech is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) of the Domain Name System (DNS) used in the Internet. The name is truncated from technology.
.sexy is a generic top-level domain owned by Uniregistry. Delegated on 14 November 2013, .sexy was the subject of controversy due to opposition from the government of Saudi Arabia and privacy concerns regarding registering domains.