Namecheap

Richard Kirkendall is one of the hardest working executives in the domain name space as the Founder and CEO of Namecheap. He has built Namecheap into one of the largest domain name registrars, and he recently launched a sister registrar platform, Spaceship.

This morning, the Wall Street Journal reported some massive news as it relates to Namecheap. A private equity company is reportedly close to acquiring a majority stake in the company. Here’s an excerpt from the article with the gist of the deal.

In January of this year, I won Pinwheel.ai in an auction held at Namecheap. My winning bid was $541, as archived by NameBio. The total cost I paid was $726.96 with the $185.96 renewal fee tacked on to the total. I have been under the assumption that the renewal fee charged for .AI domain names adds two years to the registration.

There are many reasons for why a domain registrant might transfer a domain name away from its current registrar. By the time the transfer has been initiated, it’s most likely too late for a registrar to *save* the customer / domain name. There should be no reason for a registrar to delay a transfer.

Some registrars take up to a week to release a domain name. They offer no mechanism for the customer to approve the domain name transfer, and it moves forward at whatever pace is set by the registrar.