It’s nice to see a domain industry CEO engaging with customers on social media. I appreciate that Dynadot Founder and CEO Todd Han is active on X, and seems interested in communicating with domain investors.
Last week, he posted about Dynadot’s move to Notion as its project management tool. In addition to sharing some of the open projects, he asked people if they want any new features at Dynadot:
Two factor authentication (2FA) has been available at most domain registrars for quite some time. Domain registrants can enable 2FA on their registrar accounts, and they are usually given different 2FA options like SMS, Authenticator App, or Security keyfob.
While 2FA is an option for domain registrants, it is not a requirement at most registrars. In the case of CSC, a well-known corporate domain name registrar, 2FA has been a requirement for customers since 2017:
At the end of July, I wrote about Spaceship surpassing 100,000 domain names under management (DUM). The registrar continues to grow, and its Founder Richard Kirkendall announced it has more than 200,000 domain names under management:
In a few short months, Spaceship has surpassed 200k domains under management. We have had 63,000 domains transferred to us with over 90% of those transfers being from registrars other than Namecheap. Big thanks to all of our customers!
— Richard Kirkendall (@NamecheapCEO) October 2, 2023
Spaceship, an independent domain registrar created and launched by Namecheap, is now featured on Product Hunt, the company announced this morning:
🤩 Spaceship is now live on @ProductHunt. Help us reach the stars by upvoting us, and invite fellow digital explorers to discover the endless possibilities that our platform offers 👉🏻 https://t.co/5FLihlQ7Qb #SpaceshipPHLaunch pic.twitter.com/N2vdk9AG4a
— Spaceship (@spaceship) August 16, 2023
One of the things I have been asked multiple times is what Spaceship brings to the table that sets itself apart from Namecheap. In a blog post published today, the company attempts to answer that question by sharing its mission:
Domain registrar front running is when a domain registrar tracks the domain name searches its customers perform, and when the customer does not register the domain name, the registrar registers it. The registrar would then attempt to sell the domain name back to the customer at an inflated price or would prevent the person from registering the domain name at a different registrar. TechCrunch published an article about front running back in 2008.
Over the years and since that time, I have seen dozens of public complaints about domain registrars reportedly front running domain names. I have also received quite a few private emails about this along with blog comments accusing registrars of doing this.
There are numerous reasons for why it doesn’t make much sense for a domain registrar to front run its customers. Over the weekend, Marc Köhlbrugge shared why it is not likely to happen:
Spaceship.com is a domain registrar launched by Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall. The website, which was seeking beta testers last November, launched in beta a few months ago. According to its Founder, the registrar is growing pretty quickly with more than 100,000 domain names under management (DUM):
After just a few months in open beta, Spaceship .com has now surpassed 100,000 domains under management. More than 25% of those are transfers in from other registrars. One small step…..
— Richard Kirkendall (@NamecheapCEO) July 25, 2023
