Rightside will continue to provide backend registry services for almost 200 new gTLDs that Donuts operates, the companies have announced. The new agreement will be an extension of the current 5 year contract.
The announcement is a slight surprise given that Donuts announced last October they had been working with Google since March 2016 on evaluating and contributing code to Google’s Nomulus domain name registry back-end system.
Donuts currently has 197 new generic Top Level Domains delegated, the largest of any operator, with 1.945 million domain names under management. The largest of these is .email with 63,900 registrations followed by .guru (63,000) and .today (62,400). Rightside themselves operates 40 new gTLDS with 588,000 registrations, the largest of these being .news (78,100), .live (76,300) and .rocks (75,400).
“We have a long history of working closely with Donuts, across multiple initiatives, to help drive the domain name industry forward by bringing exciting new branding options to consumers and businesses,” said Taryn Naidu, chief executive officer, Rightside. “This agreement, an extension of our five-year relationship with Donuts, ensures the continued availability of the technology platform relied on by hundreds of Donuts’ registrar partners and millions of their end-user customers.”
“Rightside’s registry platform has the right combination of innovative features, ease-of-operation, scalability, and highly responsive customer support,” said Donuts’ CEO Bruce Jaffe. “Rightside has been a critically important partner during our gTLD portfolio’s first three years in the market, and we look forward to building on our shared success.”
A registry back-end system performs the critical functions necessary for a domain name registry to fulfill its technical obligations in running a top-level domain (or TLD, the section of the web address to the right of the dot). This includes provisioning and maintenance of domains in the registry database and the domain name system (DNS), supplying Whois services, providing shared access to registration functions for domain name registrars, and numerous features to support the business and operational requirements of registry operators.