OnlineDomain.com Domain Name News & Opinions
Starting Wednesday, 25 March 2020, the .BIZ registry (Neustar) will be launching their premium domains. These are previously registry reserved names that will be available for registration in 11 premium tiers through domain name registrars.
Prices start at about $30 for the initial domain name registration and go up to about $10,000. Subsequent renewals and transfers are priced at the standard price. That is something like what .club and .global have been doing.
Here are the price tiers from a registrar that made an announcement today:
| Tier | Year 1 | Years 2-10 Price | Renew/Transfer Price |
| Category 11 | $30 USD | $12.63 USD | $12.63 USD |
| Category 10 | $55 USD | $12.63 USD | $12.63 USD |
| Category 9 | $80 USD | $12.63 USD | $12.63 USD |
| Category 8 | $110 USD | $12.63 USD | $12.63 USD |
| Category 7 | $275 USD | $12.63 USD | $12.63 USD |
| Category 6 | $525 USD | $12.63 USD | $12.63 USD |
| Category 5 | $800 USD | $12.63 USD | $12.63 USD |
| Category 4 | $1100 USD | $12.63 USD | $12.63 USD |
| Category 3 | $2750 USD | $12.63 USD | $12.63 USD |
| Category 2 | $5250 USD | $12.63 USD | $12.63 USD |
| Category 1 | $10500 USD | $12.63 USD | $12.63 USD |
In the past few months a lot of .biz expired and deleted domain names were showing up as unavailable for registration. Whois said this: “Reserved Domain Name”. The reserved domains included mainly 3 letter .biz domains and one word .biz domains.
Somehow the new .biz registry agreement does not EXPLICITLY forbids the registry to charge different prices for initial domain name registrations. It does not allow it either.
Premium renewals (charging different renewal prices to premium domains) are not allowed according to the new .biz registry agreement but of course .biz domains have no price caps (just like .info and .org) so Neustar can increase ALL renewals to whatever they want.
“In addition, Registry Operator must have uniform pricing for renewals of domain name registrations (“Renewal Pricing”). For the purposes of determining Renewal Pricing, the price for each domain registration renewal must be identical to the price of all other domain name registration renewals in place at the time of such renewal, and such price must take into account universal application of any refunds, rebates, discounts, product tying or other programs in place at the time of renewal.”
I don’t see where the .biz agreement states that Neustar can reserve any domain names it wishes but I guess they will say that is not EXPLICITLY forbidden either.
We welcome Neustar to the domaining community (NOT!) and we expect .info and .org to follow quickly. .COM will be next? All this while all these registries talk down to domain investors.
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This is nonsense. The registries just want to be the new domainers.
Brad
Just stick with dot com .
.com will have premium domains too if we don’t do anything.
This is a market with dying extensions, and others that are venture capital, acquisitions of companies for the better some write, I believe backwards time will tell.
Prices increase, we are in a globalized market economy where there is a very important supply and demand.
Although the price level in this domain market is different it is the other way around to a normal market economy, we are Domaining world.
Here there is no governance ICANN is a waste of time.
Capitalism is thickened among the Domain investors, some making millions a year and others making hundreds of thousands who give to live some much better, others live at a medium pace and others at a good pace of life, the three rhythms of life have other online businesses .
Toally not surprised, neustar is great at not doing anything and collecting money. In .nyc they already did the same. There are now premium tiers in place. I dropped few names this year, and when i rechecked it was sold by neustar for 150.
Great business model, dont do any marketing and just hike the prices cause fuck em. If they were at least doing work on extension, than it was understandable but as we know, Neustar is one of the worst when it comes to marketing and supporting extensions. But they are great at monetizing things they didnt work for.
Totally agreed. Neustar has been doing nothing about .biz and .us since 2002 and before. Hope they lose the .us contract soon. Ridiculous.
.biz is a failed extension anyway, they are only trying to extract more money to compensate for declining volume.
This is a Wild West anyway and icann only regulates what fits their interests. Registrants are not part of the equation.
Guess who is coming next? .info, .org and then .com.
.com pricing is regulated by us govt. Can see this happening for .org eventually though.
Guess that is the nail in the coffin for .BIZ domains.
.biz has been dead for a long time, you can buy single word .biz for $100 or less
I understand the premise, and blame the failed GTLDS for this stupid business model.
Drop all .biz, and just bad mouth the extension as tained
Neystar stated awhile back they were going to do the same for .us. personally i see this as bad for investors that resell domain names yet Good for people holding domains. Why? Because some investors rather than pay a fair price for a domain name wait for people to drop them. Soon the expired and deleted domains will drop in quality as the registries and registrars take what they want first. Some registrars still do this as i have seen it first hand wirh some of my domains. Doesn’t bother me because i knowingly let them expire as i tighten my portfolio. Heck i prefer it going to them rather than someone that hopes that i go through some type of hardship, medical, financial etc. Causing me to let a domain they covet to expire so they can grab it.
Anyways if your a domain owner and don’t let your names expire this is a moot point.
If your an investor you will soon have little recourse than to deal with the domain owner, which is bad for you.
I can’t imagine there being a vast number of domain names priced in categories 1 and 2. Those that are will have to perceivably be worth the one off $5,250 or $10,500 (USD) registration fee to someone otherwise the registry won’t make anything from these domain names. If the domain name quality does match the one off registration fee, some prospective registrants may be delighted to be able to pay a one off fee for a domain name they perceive to be premium. It surely follows that they would also be more likely to make significant use of the domain name registration having paid a premium price for it.