Usually, second is not as good as first, but this month we're taking a few seconds to look at some seconds.

Our first steps with #gandiv5 were back in January and this month we're taking a second look at where we've been and where we're going. Beta testing on FR-SD3, after having been extended, is officially opening as our second Paris data center. We're also peaking into the world of domaining and the secondary domain name market and we're checking in on Recently-delegated TLDs for the second time this year. And then of course we're checking in on this month's TLD releases and of course our promo roundup.

It's been a few months since we first announced the launch of #gandiv5 and with four months of updates, new releases, openings, and feature adding, we're checking in on #gandiv5 to see how it's coming along and look forward to what's still to come.

See where we've been and where we're going

While we initially expected to take FR-SD3 out of beta on March 20, we decided to extend the Beta phase, but now it's ready for a grand opening. On May 1 we gave our official fifteen day warning that FR-SD3 will be officially opening on May 15.

Find out what that means or just keep reading about FR-SD3

We've been selling domains since 1999 so it's no news that domain names are commodities and while it's existed from the beginning, the secondary domain name market has been attracting some attention lately.

We made some comments this month that might be of interest to anyone interested in investing in domain names.

Learn about the secondary market

Also of interest to domainers and people generally interested in domain names and especially the process of introducing new ones, this month after a bit of a hiatus. ICANN's delegation process has slowed to a trickle, though the TLDs being delegated are increasingly interesting in terms of the insight they provide into the arcane mechanisms of the TLD application and contention processes.

Delve deeper into this month's recently-delegated TLDs

If you missed the first TLD release this month, we hope you have a chance to register the second.

Monday May 8:

Wednesday May 10:

Stay tuned for updates!

Back to top

It'll only take us a second to round up these promos:

Only in May (May 1-31):

.global $12.00
.club $1.99
.me $5.00

Starting May 1:

.uk  $4.50 until June 30

Ending in May:

.bar, .rest 70% off first year ends May 15 
.lat 67% off ends May 31

Ongoing promotions:

Back to top

That's all we have for May. Check back in with us in a few for June's newsletter.

In the meantime, you can always reach us at feedback@gandi.net, on Twitter @gandibar or in the #gandi channel on Freenode. \o/

Sincerely,

Gandi.net

SUMMARY: AT A GLANCE
1. FR-SD3 is now in Beta	2. Snapshots and 20 Gb now free
3. Filters, sorting, and auto-reply on Gandi Mail
4. The Root Zone.: DDoS Attacks!	5. Changes to .tel domains
6. TLD release calendar	7. Promo roundup

A good, deep spring cleaning can really shake off the old, stale wintry feeling in a place and bring in new freshness and life. Deep, dark corners that haven't seen the light all year get swept out, furniture and even clothes get replaced and rearranged. It starts to seem like not even the same house anymore (or studio apartment as the case may be).

But that kind of change is good, we think, and it's just the kind of spring cleaning we've been doing in every corner this spring. If you've been following us the last few months, you already know about a few.

This month, our new data center infrastructure, FR-SD3 — which we introduced in alpha testing earlier this year — is now in beta. We introduced free snapshots on Simple Hosting and then added an extra 10 GB of storage. So now 20 GB of storage come free with every instance. We also rolled out Sieve server rules on Gandi Mail allowing free email filtering, sorting, auto-reply and more through our new SOGo webmail platform. We also reviewed our The Root Zone. meetup at the end of January about DDoS Attacks. We have a brief update about .tel domains to make sure you're all aware of and then on to the TLD release calendar and promo roundup for March.

FR-SD3 is now in Beta

One area we've been freshening up lately is our hosting infrastructure. It was to that end that we introduced a new data center earlier this year, FR-SD3.

Since that introduction, FR-SD3 has been in alpha testing, but, everything having gone well so far, we're ready to take it into the beta phase.

Find out when and what that will mean for you | Back to top

Snapshots, 20 Gb storage now free on Simple Hosting

Also in the area of hosting, this time on our Simple Hosting platform, we introduced free snapshots on Simple Hosting instances.

Snapshots are a great tool for creating and scheduling backups.

And not only that, we are now increasing the default disk size for Simple Hosting instances up to 20 Gb.

Get the relevant details on free snapshots | Check our announcement about increasing storage space | Back to top

Filters, sorting, and auto-reply on Gandi Mail

Last month we introduced SOGo, our new webmail platform, in beta and this month we introduced the next development in our rethinking of our mail service: Sieve server rules.

A look at Sieve filters in the SOGo interface

For those who are not familiar with Sieve, this means that you can add rules to your mailboxes, like spam filters, out-of-office replies, and sorting into folders.

Read how to activate and use Sieve filters | Back to top

The Root Zone.: DDoS Attacks!

On January 31, Gandi and CloudFlare presented a panel discussion as part of our joint Meetup series The Root Zone. which focuses on DNS-related topics. This panel's topic was DDoS attacks, with a special emphasis on the large attack in October. We invited DNS inventor Paul Mockapetris, Chris Baker, principal data analyst at Dyn, Brian Hartvigsen, who works as SRE Manager for OpenDNS, another DNS provider, Andrew Lewman from threat intelligence firm Farsight Security (and former CEO of the Tor Project), as well as Gandi's own Chief Innovation Officer Pascal Bouchareine.

CloudFlare hosted this panel in their space at the end of January

You can watch the whole panel on YouTube, or read through our summary with links to relevant sections for the videos in our write-up about this event, now available online.

Read through our summary with video links | Back to top

Changes to .tel domains

Finally, a bit of housekeeping before we get on to the TLD release calendar and Promo roundup. The registry for .tel domains recently announced changes that will impact everyone with a .tel domain and anyone interested in getting one.

In short, these domains will no longer have to be directly linked to telephony.

Have a look at the changes | Back to top

TLD release Calendar

Wednesday March 15:

.hospital (Landrush)
.企业 (.xn--vhquv "company") (Landrush)
.商店 (.xn--czrs0t "shop") (Landrush)
.娱乐 (.xn--fjq720a "entertainment") (Landrush)
.游戏 (.xn--unup4y "games") (Landrush)

Wednesday March 22:

.hospital (GoLive)
.企业 (.xn--vhquv "company") (GoLive)
.商店 (.xn--czrs0t "shop") (GoLive)
.娱乐 (.xn--fjq720a "entertainment") (GoLive)
.游戏 (.xn--unup4y "games") (GoLive)

Monday March 27:

.fun (Landrush)

Stay tuned for updates!

Back to top

Promo Roundup

And finally, let's organize these promos:

Only in March (March 1-31:

.design $7.99
.mx $12.00
.sucks $2.99

Starting March 1:

.lat 67% off until May 31
.pro 50% off until June 30
.organic, .bio, .green $9.00 until June 30
.loan, .cricket, .accountant, .faith, .science $5.00
.men, .bid, .win $2.50
.racing, .webcam, .download, .stream, .date, .trade, .review, .party $2.99
.radio.am, .radio.fm $5.70

Starting March 17:

.bar, .rest 70% off first year until May 15

Ending March 30:

.boutique, .city, .coffee, .digital, .email, .fyi, .guru, .immo, .land, .life, .ltd, .maison, .mba, .media, .run, .sarl, .solutions, .systems, .today, .tools, .vin, .voyage, .wine, .works, .world, .zone

Ending March 31:

.news, .reviews, .social half price until March 31

Ongoing promotions:

 .tech, .online multi-year renewals until June 30
.click, .link, .lol $3.99 until June 30
.me half price until December 31
.top $1.50 until December 31
.archi, .black, .blue, .info, .kim, .lgbt, .mobi, .pet, .pink, .poker, .promo, .red, .ski, half price until June 30
.host, .online, .press, .pw, .site, .space, .store, .tech, .website until June 30
.promo half price until June 30

Back to top

That's it for spring cleaning this month. If it seems like a lot of change, remember: we're only just cleaning house.

Feel free to contact us at feedback@gandi.net, on Twitter @gandibar or in the #gandi channel on Freenode. \o/

Sincerely,

Gandi.net

On January 31, Gandi and CloudFlare presented a panel discussion as part of our joint Meetup series The Root Zone. which focuses on DNS-related topics. If you haven't had the opportunity to attend before, or had the chance to catch up on the series so far, they are all available online.

This time marked a departure from the previous format of interviewing various DNS luminaries by bringing together a panel of experts to speak on a specific problem in DNS that notably reared its head last October. We're talking, of course, about DDoS, or a Distributed Denial of Service attack.

CloudFlare hosted this panel in their space at the end of January

Cloudflare and Gandi invited DNS inventor Paul Mockapetris, Chris Baker, principal data analyst at Dyn, Brian Hartvigsen, who works as SRE Manager for OpenDNS, another DNS provider, Andrew Lewman from threat intelligence firm Farsight Security (and former CEO of the Tor Project), as well as Gandi's own Chief Innovation Officer Pascal Bouchareine. The panel was moderated by Cloudflare Engineering Manager Gideon Redelinghuys.

You can watch the whole panel discussion on YouTube below:

Or jump to specific questions from the list below:

1. Describing October's attack

After introductions and a brief history of DDoS, we wanted to start off describing the attack in October on Dyn's services.

Gideon Redelinghuys from CloudFlare moderates (photo credit: Dani Grant, Cloudflare)

Chris described how the October attack and others like it tend to start as spikes of anomalous activity. One reason we wanted to include OpenDNS was because of the solution they've devised to address the authoritative exhaustion problem. Brian from OpenDNS explained it in greater detail. That opened up the question of what, if any, is the ideal TTL, which was posed to Chris.

2. Why is this happening now?

Of course, authoritative exhaustion and amplification attacks are nothing new. DDoS has been around for decades, which almost begs the question: why did this happen now? Andrew emphasized the fact that the October DDoS was the culmination of a lot of trial-and-error testing.

Paul made a good point about the asymmetry between increased bandwidth and centralized DNS hierarchy: don't we have to think about the fundamental asymmetry in this type of attack?

3. Is there an easy solution?

As we started talking about root causes and solutions, we didn't think this would last long without mention of BCP38.

For those who aren't familiar with it, BCP38 recommends what's generally called ingress filtering. It's a proposed means to combat IP address spoofing that involves blocking IP packets entering the internet with forged source IP addresses, that is, not assigned to the device that's sending them.

Brian brought up a good point, though, which is that when we talk about "solutions" the target is artificial.

Brian Hartvigsen from OpenDNS discusses DDoS attacks (photo credit: Dani Grant, Cloudflare)

Paul highlighted the critical theoretical question underlying the discussion of solutions: Will we find a solution that preserves the network as we know it and want it?

And Chris elaborated on one direction Paul's comments brought up, talking about the conflict between a free and open internet and the proverbial "golden list of IPs" came up, and the need for real, direct relationships between providers on different levels.

In the end though, as Brian put it, solving these problems comes down to something unglamorously non-technological.

4. In the middle of the attack

We thought it would be interesting for a little bit of an inside perspective on the experience of being in the middle of the storm as it were.

Chris described the fact that the experience as a data analyst in the middle of a big attack like October's DDoS can be at odds with the NOC perspective, especially at Dyn last October.

At OpenDNS, however, the experience was very different, according to Brian.

5. Minor miracles and things to be thankful for

We asked what some of the blessings the panelists were thankful for during these attacks in the past. Brian's answer was pretty unequivocal: Anycast and having a good playbook, and for his part, Chris followed up with a discussion about 20-bit case randomization to introduce entropy that helps with identifying spoofing.

6. The underlying problem hasn't gone away

Paul turned the praise of Anycast into a pointed question about why the Mirai attack went away. Andrew pointed out that while this attack is mitigated, the underlying problem still hasn't gone away. So what's to stop it, then, from coming back with a vengeance? Chris reminded us of something crucial to remember about DDoS: DDoS is the bluntest instrument you can use.

Pascal Bouchareine from Gandi talks about the need for good communication (photo credit: Dani Grant, Cloudflare)

Pascal and Brian also talked about the role that communication plays in the problem and the conflict between transparency and appearing to pass the buck or not providing sufficient details, or inviting further attacks.

7. DDoS in a wider context

While we were primarily focused on considering DDoS as a technical problem, we did take a moment to think about how DDoS is employed for specific purposes in the real world. Brian continued that thought, which led to a question we had for Paul. And while we had Andrew with us, we decided to poke him about Tor's role.

8. Q&A

We finished off the meet up with a Q&A session from the audience:

Q. Why isn't the fact that DNS doesn't serve the last-known answer when no other answer is available considered a bug?
Brian and then Chris fielded this one.

Q. Is there some way for a customer to know what's good vs. what's bad?
"What's good is what works for your network."

Q. How do we protect ourselves, really?
Is centralization or decentralization the answer?

And with that, we wrapped things up. And while if you're watching these, we assume you couldn't make it, we hope you caught the gist of it here. We hope to be able to host a few more panel discussions on relevant DNS topics in the coming months. Follow the meetup page for The Root Zone. for information about future events, but we will also be sure to keep you updated here as well.

SUMMARY: AT A GLANCE
1. Introducing SoGo: Gandi's new webmail.	2. New Feature: Usernames and Organizations
3. New Simple Hosting interface	4. Buy a .cloud, get a t-shirt
5. The Root Zone.: DDoS Attacks!
6. TLD release calendar	7. Promo roundup

February may be a short month, but it's sure to be jam-packed with updates. In particular, over the past several weeks, we've been continuously rolling out new features onto the beta of our new site: #gandiv5.

For those who've been waiting with bated breath, please breathe because after one month we're just getting started and as we're already treading into month two, really, that's a long time of not breathing. That's not to say things aren't progressing. On the contrary, things are moving along quite well and we've gotten some great feedback from many of you. Keep it coming.

In this month's newsletter, we're looking at some of the features added to the beta over the course of January. These include a new webmail service, a new way of structuring accounts and an updated interface for Simple Hosting. And as always, we have a couple of new TLDs being released and a roundup of our current promos. We managed to pack all of that and a little more into the past month.

Introducing SOGo: Gandi's new webmail

The first big #gandiv5 news of the month was the introduction of a new webmail service, SOGo.

Those of you familiar with Roundcube from using our legacy site will no doubt see the advantages of using SOGo, including:

• Thirty-two display languages
• Customizable folders
• Calendar integration
• Labels

 A peak at the SOGo interface

We encourage anyone interested in learning more to check it out.

Get more details | Back to top

New Feature: Usernames and Organizations

Next, we officially rolled out the new account structure for #gandiv5 this past month. The days of logging in with the AB1234-GANDI type handle are over. Instead, you'll get the chance to define your own username.

The Username and Organization menu in #gandiv5

In introducing this new feature of #gandiv5 we also introduced the concept of Organizations and discussed some of the added benefits of this restructuring.

Check it out here | Back to top

New Simple Hosting interface

We know many of you have more than just domains at Gandi. Don't worry. We haven't been neglecting you. This month we also rolled out the new Simple Hosting interface for #gandiv5.

This is more than just a redecoration or porting of the previous service to the new site. It's a true upgrade in terms of user interface and navigation. But you don't have to take our word for it. Give it a spin! 

Read all about it | Back to top

Buy a .cloud, get a .cloud t-shirt

It's as simple as that: buy a .cloud domain from Gandi this month, get a special edition, one-of-a-kind .cloud t-shirt. Of course, it wouldn't be "limited edition" if we gave it to everyone-everyone. You have to be within the first 200 registrants of a .cloud domain.

The .cloud t-shirt design

When you register one, you'll get a code you can use to get your shirt.

Check out the design and find out more | Back to top

The Root Zone.: DDoS Attacks!

Just last week, along with our friends at Cloudflare, we hosted the first edition in our second series of meetups under the moniker The Root Zone. This time rather than one-on-one interviews, we invited a panel of experts to discuss the hottest DNS topic of the past six months: DDoS attacks.

We'll be posting a full overview in the next couple of weeks, so keep an eye out for that. If you attended, thanks for coming! If you missed it, for now, feel free to watch the whole event on UStream. Expect more details soon, though.

Watch the video | Back to top

TLD release Calendar

Just a couple of new TLDs coming out this month:

Wednesday February 1:

.eco (Sunrise)

Wednesday February 8:

.art (Landrush)

Stay tuned for updates!

Back to top

Promo Roundup

And now for a look at current promos. Some start this month. Others end this month. Some of them will last all year:

Only in February (February 1-28):

.cloud $9.00
.club $1.99
.me $5.00 creations
.fashion $9.00

Starting February 1:

.tech, .online multi-year renewals until June 30
.boutique, .city, .coffee, .digital, .email, .fyi, .guru, .immo, .land, .life, .ltd, .maison, .mba, .media, .run, .sarl, .solutions, .systems, .today, .tools, .vin, .voyage, .wine, .works, .world, .zone on sale until March 30
.click, .link, .lol $3.99 until June 30

Ending February 12:

.markets, .trading 75% off first year through February 12

Ending February 28:

.cn 25% off until February 28 (Happy Year of the Rooster!)
.pro $3.00 until February 28
.tech $16.70 per year for 5-9 year creations; $11.50 per year for ten years until February 28

Ongoing promotions:

.me half price until December 31
.top $1.50 until December 31
.archi, .black, .blue, .info, .kim, .lgbt, .mobi, .pet, .pink, .poker, .promo, .red, .ski, half price until June 30
.host, .online, .press, .pw, .site, .space, .store, .tech, .website until June 30
.promo half price until June 30
.news, .reviews, .social half price until March 31

Back to top

Until then, feel free to contact us at feedback@gandi.net, on Twitter @gandibar, Facebook, G+, or in the #gandi channel on Freenode. \o/

Sincerely,

Gandi.net

SUMMARY: AT A GLANCE
1. #gandiv5: It's here!
2. Gandi Hosting: 2017
3. Gandi's The Root Zone.	4. Recently-delegated TLDs
5. TLD release calendar	6. Promo roundup

On behalf of the Gandi team we would like to wish you all a happy 2017! The last year was quite a year for us and along with the new year, we are stepping off from the foundation we laid in 2016, with resolutions for 2017 in hand.

The first step is that we've just unveiled #gandiv5 officially in beta to all of you, meaning if you have an individual type account, you can now migrate to the new site. If not, or if all the features you need are not quite ready yet, hold off for just a little bit longer and we promise you'll be seeing it soon.

Speaking of promises, we are also resolving this year to revamp our hosting platform, including some changes already underway. Read on for details.

Late this month in our San Francisco offices we'll also be hosting the next edition of The Root Zone., this time with a slightly different format.

And once again this month we'll be taking a look at recently-delegated TLDs from the past month, TLD releases for January and we have a fresh herd of promos to round up as well.

It's the new year, and in 2017, we're taking a deep breath and stepping forward. Here we go.

#gandiv5: It's here!

After months of hard work, user tests, revisions, rehashing, heated debates (no fistfights to our knowledge), we're finally ready to unveil the first major revision to our site in a few years (special thanks to our devoted development team).

#gandiv5, as we're calling it, has limited functions for now, but as time goes on, we'll be adding more and more functions until it's ready to fully replace the current version.

What is it and how to try it out | Back to top

Gandi Hosting: 2017

This year, we're also resolving to commit ourselves to a new plan of action for our hosting service, starting from the ground up, with brand new infrastructure. First up, we're planning to give a facelift to our whole line of hosting products, which should rejuvenate them for the task ahead.

Part of the plan was to open a brand new data center with a reworked architecture. We're happy to report we've already done so and we're already seeing the kind of performance improvements we expected. While it's still in Alpha testing, we think you'll like it.

A sneak peak at the hardware

Read the master plan | About the new DC | Back to top

Gandi Events: The Root Zone

We're pleased to announce the return this month of our DNS-themed meetup series The Root Zone.. Previously we focused on interviewing a handful of luminaries (if they don't mind us calling them that) in the field, including Paul Mockapetris, Dan Kaminsky and Paul Vixie. This time around, we're trying out a new format where we bring in a panel to discuss a particular DNS-related topic. This month the topic is: DDoS Attacks! with panelists including Paul Mockapetris, Andrew Lewman (Farsight Security),  Gideon Redelinghuys (CloudFlare), Brian Hartvigsen (OpenDNS), and Gandi's own Pascal Boucheraine.

The meetup will be held on January 31 at 6:00 PM PST in our San Francisco offices. For more details, see the Root Zone. event Meetup page.

Back to top

Recently-delegated TLDs

Of course, every month there are always new gTLDs added to the root by ICANN and this past month was no exception.

The story of each new TLD is usually pretty much what you expect, but sometimes there are surprises. This month we saw a few.

Prepare to be (mildly) surprised | Back to top

TLD release Calendar

Both TLD releases in January are just coming available in the Sunrise phase, which we think is perfectly appropriate for the new year:

Tuesday January 10:

.hospital (Sunrise)

Monday January 23:

.fun (Sunrise)

Stay tuned for updates!

Back to top

Promo Roundup

As for our promos, it's something of a fresh start as well, with a whole herd of promos ending December 31 and a new batch for the new year taking their place. It's the circle of life, we suppose:

Ending January 31:

 .shop creation for $9.99 until January 31
 .bet $7.00 first year creations until January 31 

Only in January:

.asia $1.99 until January 14

New Year's promos (starting January 1):

.me half price until December 31
.top $1.50 until December 31
.archi, .black, .blue, .info, .kim, .lgbt, .mobi, .pet, .pink, .poker, .promo, .red, .ski, half price until June 30
.host, .online, .press, .pw, .site, .space, .store, .tech, .website until June 30
.promo half price until June 30
.news, .reviews, .social half price until March 31
.cn 25% off until February 28 (Happy Year of the Rooster!)
.pro $3.00 until February 28

Ongoing promotions:

.tech $16.70 per year for 5-9 year creations; $11.50 per year for ten years until February 28
.markets, .trading 75% off first year through February 12
.cat $5.00 through January 11
.xyz $1.00 until January 5

Back to top

Happy New Year, again! Did we miss any resolutions? Do you have something to share with us? If you have any thoughts or comments for us about the new site, #gandiv5, please feel free to share them at feedback@gandi.net.

Otherwise, drop us a line with your resolutions, New Year's wishes, and any thing else on Twitter @gandibar, Facebook, G+, or in the #gandi channel on Freenode. \o/

Are you ready for the next step forward?

Sincerely,

Gandi.net

SUMMARY: AT A GLANCE
1. ICANN policy update	2. Recently-delegated TLDs
3. Two-million domains managed
4. 2016 at Gandi: A Year in Review
5. TLD release calendar	6. Promo roundup

You can mark time in two ways, really. With (relatively) arbitrary values, like days, months, and years, in which case looking back and looking forward provides the same view: a long row of uniformly-spaced markers arranged in a straight line into infinity. Or you can mark it by what you've done, in which case looking back you see the monuments celebrating your past achievements and the road ahead is still just under construction.

This month we have a little bit of both. As we look back at the year 2016 we have had some achievements to celebrate and some news to help mark the time. We start out this month with a quick note on a recent ICANN policy update before taking a look at this past month's recently-delegated TLDs. One milestone we passed this year has been the two-million managed domain names mark. We're taking a chance to reflect on that accomplishment before looking back at the year 2016 as a whole.

And of course, it wouldn't be a newsletter without our TLD release calendar and promo roundup.

ICANN policy update

We start off with no surer indicator of the passage of time than an ICANN policy update.

This time around, the change is two-sided. The downside of it is that changing an email address for the owner of a domain name is now a little more complicated. Such a change is now tantamount to changing the owner of the domain in terms of the authorization required.

The upside of it is that ICANN will now allow us as your registrar to act as a designated agent. That means that with some contractual modifications, we will be able to skip the authorization steps and update the email on your account like normal. Unfortunately, that feature is not yet available.

What's different | Back to top

Recently-delegated TLDs

This month we looked into a few strange interactions between community and TLDs. In particular, that took the form of .free, .food, .box, .cruise, and .boston.

Things get a little weird, but don't be afraid. It's good-weird.

Take a walk on the wild side | Back to top

Two Million Domains Managed

As a quick note on another milestone marking the passage of time, just a couple weeks ago we surpassed two million domains managed at Gandi, out of 728 (for now) TLDs.

Which is a good opportunity to take stock of the fact that we now manage more than two million email addresses, close to 50,000 SSL certificates, and a couple of hundred thousand hosted websites and applications.

Of course, none of it would be possible without all 121 gandians across four offices on three continents in Paris, Luxembourg, San Francisco, and Taipei.

This is the core team that will take us into 2017 towards the next two million domains, which also thanks to you, our customer and fan base, will happen much sooner than the first two million.

Back to top

2016 at Gandi: A Year in Review

Of course, with the year coming to an end all the year-end listicles about the craziest things that happened in 2016 and lists of the top everything that came out this year are popping up around the internet.

We threw in our own year-end review, this time looking at Gandi news articles, TLDs released this year and looking back at our recently-delegated TLD feature.

Take a look back at this past year with us | Back to top

TLD release Calendar

Only a couple of TLDs were released this month, but they were both good ones. The highly anticipated .art entered the Sunrise phase and the equally exciting .cam entered the GoLive phase.

Here's the same information, but in list and calendar form:

Wednesday December 7:

.art (Sunrise)

Wednesday December 14:

.cam (GoLive)

Stay tuned for updates!

Back to top

Promo Roundup

Our promos are 100% organic, free-range, grass-fed, rambling about the open range. But once a month we wrangle them all together in one place so you can take your pick of the herd.

Here's this month's Promo Roundup:

Ending December 31:

.org half-price -- first 5,000 domains only!
 .live, .studio, .video half-price 
.desi half-price
.store $7.99 per year in GoLive
.accountant, .bid, .cricket, .date, .download, .faith, .loan, .party, .racing, .review, .science, .trade, .webcam, .win $2.00 per year
.online, .press, .website, .site, .host, .space, .pw, .tech on promo
.tech, .online, .site renewals 50% off
 .xyz $3.99 per year
.black, .blue, .pink, .red, .lgbt, .kim, .shiksha, .poker, .pro, .info, .mobi, .移动 50% off
.gdn $1.50

Only in December:

.ski, .bio, .archi half-price until December 15
.club 50% off until December 31

Starting December 2:

.bet $7.00 first year creations until January 31

Starting December 5:

.tech $16.70 per year for 5-9 year creations; $11.50 per year for ten years until January 31

Starting December 20:

.xyz $1.00 until January 5

Ongoing promotions:

 .shop creation for $9.99 until January 31
.markets, .trading 75% off first year through February 12
.cat $5.00 through January 11
.stream $2.00 per year in GoLive

Back to top

In 2015 we celebrated 15 years in business, in 2016 we hit the two million domains mark, But did we miss something? Or are you lonely and want to chat? Tweet us @gandibar, email us at feedback@gandi.net, on Facebook, G+, or contact us on the #gandi channel on Freenode. \o/

So now what's in store for 2017? We can sum it up in one hashtag: #gandiv5. Thanks for a great year everyone. Happy holidays and a happy new year!

Sincerely,

Gandi.net

Rolling over from one calendar year to another is a totally arbitrary marker of time. That said, it's a great excuse to take a look back at the previous year and make sure nobody missed anything important.

So since it's December, we decided we'd take a look back at Gandi news from the past twelve months, TLDs that became available for purchase at Gandi this past year as well as a look back at our coverage of the new gTLD program under the guise of our recurring Recently-Delegated TLDs feature.

Gandi News 2016
In August, we looked back at some of our featured content from this year. But we didn't cover the other news items, both industry news and product news, that we covered in 2016. We started off this year by launching our LiveDNS Beta (okay, that was actually three days before January 1 but we'll include it anyway), and Let's Encrypt. In June we launched ten new currencies and One-click Wordpress installation on Simple Hosting instances. Also in June, the new TLD program hit the halfway point.

At the end of September, ICANN's contract with the US Department of Commerce expired and IANA functions reverted directly to ICANN, despite some controversy. We gave you our take on it in October.

If you missed any of these, you can find them all here:

• LiveDNS beta: first glimpse into our new DNS platform
• Free TLS/SSL Certificates with Let's Encrypt and Gandi
• Ten new currencies Now Available at Gandi
• One-click WordPress on Simple Hosting
• Checking in on new TLDs
• So about that ICANN IANA transition

New TLDs 2016
We are proud of having as extensive a TLD portfolio as possible. Not only does this make us one of the only places to find certain new TLDs, but it also means we're a good place to keep a wide domain name portfolio, especially for our Corporate Customers.

That's one reason why we've set out to bring you coverage of new TLD offerings as they come available at Gandi and when they enter the GoLive phase.

As we noted above, this past June marked the halfway point in the delegation of these TLDs by ICANN, so we're looking forward to many more to come, but being the end of the year and all, we thought it'd be a good time to take a look back at new TLDs that became available at Gandi or entered the GoLive phase in 2016, just in case you missed them

Here's the list, separated by month they entered the GoLive phase:

January
.swiss
.feedback
.corsica
.auto
.car
.cars
.family

February
.kyoto
.cloud
.pet

March
.bet
.bible
.barcelona

April
No TLDs entered the GoLive phase

May
.mom
.ist
.istanbul
.vip
.promo
.game

June
.group
.salon
.store
.gmbh
.ltd

July
.tube

August
.닷컴
.닷넷

September
.games
.shop
.shopping

October
No TLDs entered GoLive in October

November
.makeup
.blog

This past year we also got serious about keeping you updated on recently-delegated TLDs, both so you can keep an eye out for new TLDs on their way and to give a glimpse under the hood, so to speak, of the new gTLD application process and all the haggling and sometimes drama of it.

Find them all right here:

• January
• February
• March
• April
• May
• June
• July
• August
• September
• October
• November
• December

We'd also like to open it up to you, our customers and our audience. Is there information that you would like to see that we're not covering? Let us know.

SUMMARY: AT A GLANCE
1. All about DPML Plus	2. Half-price .org domains
3. Events at Gandi	3. Events outside Gandi
5. Recently-delegated TLDs
6. TLD release calendar	7. Promo roundup

Have you been paying attention?

This month has been full of distractions (though let's not go there). But relax. We're hear to catch you up on what you may have missed at Gandi.

Let's start with a new, limited-time option from Donuts for new gTLDs called DPML Plus. We'll guide you through what regular old DPML is and then see what's changing and what the Plus is for.

Then we'll stop off at .org for an excellent promo that just got going.

After that, in case you missed it, we'll give you a rundown on what we've been up to. We've been busy this past month and this coming one, both inside our offices and outside.

And then we'll see what ICANN's been up to, at least in terms of delegating new strings, with this month's Recently-delegated TLDs update.

And as always, we'll peek at the TLD release calendar and then round up this month's promos.

Anyway, we know it's so easy for things to slip by when you're not watching. That's why we're summing it all up here.

Changes to Donuts's DPML protection

While it may be of general interest to just about anyone, Donuts's DPML protection program is mostly of interest to those who own trademarks and want to protect them across new TLDs. If that's you and you didn't catch our rundown of the changes to the program, we suggest looking into it. At least before the end of the year when things really change.

What it is and what changed | Back to top

Half-price .org domains

Another time-sensitive bit of news that we wouldn't want you to miss this month is that .org domains are currently half-price on the first year of registration. Take a look at our full promo roundup below and you'll notice that most of them are new TLDs. It's pretty rare to see such a significant promo on an old standby like .org. And this one's only good for first 5,000 domains created and only goes until the end of the year, so get them while they're still hot.

Get a half-price .org while you can | Back to top

Events at Gandi

We've had a busy month across our various offices. Here's just a few things we've been up to.

Kernel Recipes
Running from September 28 through 30 in Paris, Gandi helped sponsor Kernel Recipes, consisting of three days of about 20 talks (plus "lightning" talks). If the name doesn't make it obvious, Kernel Recipes largely revolves around discussions of open source, especially kernel.org.

For photos, videos, and more for this year's event, check them out on the Kernel Recipes site.

CaliOpen
Since 2013, we've been sponsoring the open source messaging project CaliOpen as one of our premier sponsored projects. This past month, CaliOpen announced that they'd secured financing from BPIFrance.

If you don't yet know of CaliOpen, it's an open source project to make secure electronic communication of all forms easy. For details, check out CaliOpen's site.

Holberton
On the US side of things, we've opened our doors up to Holberton School, a project-based, peer learning programming school. We're devoting a portion of our office space in SoMA in San Francisco as a co-working space and we've been glad to see them stopping by.

You can find out more about Holberton School on their website.

Or read the press release or even this cio.com article or more information on the help we're providing.

See photos and videos from Kernel Recipes 2016 | Check out CaliOpen (in French) | Find out more about Holberton School | Back to top

Events outside Gandi

M3AAWG Paris
From October 24 through October 27 members of our abuse team based in Paris (they mitigate abuse, not deal it out, in case you were wondering) attended M3AAWG, the Messaging Malware Anti-Abuse Working Group. M3AAWG is a critical part of developing best practices for combating online spam, fraud, and malware online
We're happy to be able to participate in M3AAWG meetings and just as previous meetings have taken place right in our neighborhood in San Francisco, this time our home city of Paris was selected, which is convenient for us.

ICANN Hyderabad
We've been covering a lot of ICANN-related news lately, and maybe that was in part out of anticipation for ICANN57.

ICANN57 just wrapped up in Hyderabad and according to some changes in the structure and rhythm of ICANN meetings approved back in 2014, ICANN57 was a little longer than ICANN56, lasting a full seven days, with two public forum sessions. As of two ICANN sessions ago that's now the norm.

While, admittedly, a great depth of material isn't available, a good starting point for anyone who missed ICANN57 but are curious about the meeting is ICANN's blog.

Otherwise, we also use this meeting as a chance to meet face-to-face with many of our partners up and down the domain name food chain, and it was of course great to have that opportunity as well. With .blog launching this month, the registry held a big launch party which was about as lit as a TLD release party an get.

As for future events, as the year comes to a close and the winter Federal holiday season approaches, we don't expect a lot of upcoming events. However, keep on eye on our meet up page for The Root Zone, our periodic DNS-themed meet up we coordinate with CloudFlare.

M3AAWG | ICANN Blog | Back to top

Recently-Delegated TLDs

While battles for this month's batch of newly delegated TLDs are long over, in case you missed them, this past month's recently-delegated new TLDs post focuses on the question of who is better suited to be awarded the contract for a new gTLD: an organization or company already closely associated with the TLD or a large "portfolio" registry?

Find out how this month's TLDs answer that question | Back to top

TLD release Calendar

Not many TLDs will be or have already been released this month, but there are a few. In particular, we wanted to highlight .blog, entering the GoLive phase November 21. This is a great opportunity to do some one-stop shopping by getting a .blog and attaching it to a Simple Hosting instance with one-click Wordpress installation (see our guide for more information)

Tuesday November 8:

.makeup (GoLive)

Monday November 21:

.blog (GoLive)

Wednesday November 27:

.娱乐 (.xn--fjq720a "entertainment") (GoLive)
.企业 (.xn--vhquv "company") (GoLive)
.商店 (.xn--czrs0t "shop") (GoLive)
.游戏 (.xn--unup4y "games") (GoLive)

Stay tuned for updates!

Back to top

Promo Roundup

Yeehaww! We're rounding up a whole herd of promos this month (including that .org one we mentioned above) in this month's Promo Roundup. Catch up with the full roundup below:

Only in November:

.top creations $1.00 and renewals half-price
.club renewals reduced-price
.me just $5.00
.eu half-price

Starting November 1:

.org half-price through December 31 -- first 5,000 domains only!

Starting November 7:

.markets, .trading 75% off first year through February 12 

Starting November 8:

.shop creation for $9.99 until January 31

Ending November 30:

.design $10.00 through November 30
.link $4.50 through November 30
.photo $5.00 through November 30
.audio, .hiphop, .guitars $9.03, $12.84 , and $16.22 through November 30

Ongoing promotions:

.cat $5.00 through January 11
 .live, .studio, .video half-price through December 31
.desi half-price through December 31
.store $7.99 per year in GoLive through December 31
.stream $2.00 per year in GoLive
.accountant, .bid, .cricket, .date, .download, .faith, .loan, .party, .racing, .review, .science, .trade, .webcam, .win $2.00 per year through December 31
.online, .press, .website, .site, .host, .space, .pw, .tech on promo through December 31
.tech, .online, .site renewals 50% off through December 31
 .xyz $3.99 per year through December 31
.black, .blue, .pink, .red, .lgbt, .kim, .shiksha, .poker, .pro, .info, .mobi, .移动 50% off until December 31 (previously June 30)
.gdn $1.50 until until December 31

Back to top

With plenty out there to distract this month, we wouldn't be surprised if you missed a few of the things we talked about above. We hope you've caught up now. But did we miss something? Or maybe you just miss us and need someone to talk to. Either way, tweet us @gandibar, email us at feedback@gandi.net, on Facebook, G+, or contact us on the #gandi channel on Freenode. \o/

Sincerely,

Gandi.net

After a flood of Brand TLDs delegated and in September very few TLDs delegated, ICANN is back to adding strings to the root zone at a steady clip with three generic TLDs added this month.

The three generic TLDs delegated this month pose the question: Who is the best steward of a TLD closely associated with real world organizations?

The application process and final delegation results for .radio, .basketball, and .baseball provide an answer to this question. But not without some messy fights between some of the respective applicants.

.radio — October 12

There were four applicants for .radio, three of which—BRS Media Inc. (registry for .am and .fm), Donuts (who submitted a PIC) and Afilias—submitted a standard application while the fourth, the European Broadcasting Union (or EBU) submitted a Community Priority Application.

If you're familiar with the Eurovision contest, then you're at least passingly familiar with EBU (in fact, they also applied for .eurovision as a Brand TLD). Besides that, they are an international association composed largely of national, government-sponsored or government-run broadcasters. Their application was additionally supported by the World Broadcasting Unions (WBU) and the Association Mondiale des Radiodiffuseurs Communautaires (AMARC) as well as a number of other amateur and professional radio organizations.

Because EBU submitted their application for this domain as a Community Priority Application, ICANN considered their application first, before any of the standard applications were considered. For obvious reasons, the companies who had submitted their applications as standard applications opposed EBU's community application. BRS Media attacked EBU with particular vehemence.

Community Priority Applications are evaluated by a panel of ICANN-appointed but independent experts who score applications on numerous criteria with a total possible score of 16. A minimum score of 14 is required to pass, and EBU's application barely cleared this hurdle.

The specific objections to the decision came down to the question of whether EBU should represent the "radio community." BRS Media in particular vocally complained that ICANN's decision would create a narrow definition of the radio community. They also asserted EBU had a conflict of interest for having joined ICANN's GAC (Government Advisory Committee) as an observer. BRS, along with Affilias and other standard applicants, filed a request for independent review of the ICANN board's final decision, which was flatly denied and ultimately withdrawn.

With the delegation of .radio, EBU plans to set up a World .Radio Advisory Board to define policies on accepting domain applicants, with preference being given to broadcast radio stations and then internet radio.

.basketball — October 19

Next up, .basketball was delegated to FIBA (Fédération Internationale de Basketball Amateur), the international basketball organization responsible for, among other things, establishing the rules of the sport, appointing referees and establishing control for international competition such as in the Olympics.

In their application, FIBA partnered with ROAR Domains, a New Zealand based company that also supported the International Rugby Board in its .rugby application.

Among FIBA's competition for .basketball was Donuts, the "portfolio" registry co-founded by current CEO Paul Stahura, also founder of the registrar eNom and winner of the 2012 Domainer of the year award. ROAR attempted to wield this reputation against Donuts, telling Donuts that they would seek Donuts's disqualification not just for .baskteball but as a registry

Donuts, of course, is now the registry for nearly 200 TLDs comprising almost 2 million domains.

However, .basketball is not one of them.

.baseball — October 30

A final entry in this month's study of who makes the most appropriate steward of a TLD focused on a specific group or topic is .baseball. There were two applicants for this TLD: Donuts (under the guise of Silver Pass LLC), and MLB Advanced Media DH, LLC, which is a partnership of Major League Baseball team owners for the purposes of running MLB-branded internet and "interactive" media, including MLB's website and the websites of each of the individual teams.

This was the least contentious of the three TLDs we're covering this month, but with this we'll point out that .baseball's technical backend will notably not be handled by MLB Advanced Media itself but Neustar, a well-established registry.

Likewise, .basketball's technical backend will be managed by CentralNic, another established registry founded in 1995. The technical backend for .radio, however will be handled by Knipp Medien und Kommunikation GmbH, a small registrar and more recently registry based in Germany.

The point though, is that the question of whether each of these TLDs should be managed by a company or organization close to the existing industry or activity represented by that TLD is largely irrelevant on a technical level. Where it matters is in deciding who should be the one to market the new TLD to the niche market covered by it.

In many cases, ICANN has entrusted so-called portfolio registries to market extensions as they see fit. In these three delegated this month, ICANN has accepted applications, in some cases despite occasionally significant contention, from groups associated with the meaning of the TLD itself.

These examples don't necessarily prove that one model is better than any other, but as .radio, .basketball, and .baseball enter the market, we'll see whether these decisions were good for marketing these TLDs.

Keep an eye on this page as well as ICANN's delegated strings page for updates and remember:

Just because we've featured a TLD in this feature doesn't mean Gandi will be offering it any time soon. We don't know yet how they'll be rolled out to the market, so we can't say for sure whether we'll be offering them at Gandi. We'll try our best, though.

SUMMARY: AT A GLANCE
1. #gandiv5
2. Recently-delegated TLDs	3. In depth: So about that IANA transition ...
6. TLD release calendar	7. Promo roundup

Change is in the air and everything is shifting into a brand new phase.

On our side, we're getting ready for #gandiv5, the next evolution in our website. We'll touch briefly on that just a few lines below here. Then we'll quickly look at this month's recently-delegated TLDs before taking an in-depth look at the ICANN IANA transition that took place, amongst some controversy, on the first of this month.

Of course, we'll also review this month's TLD release calendar so that you can prepare for the coming TLD releases and do our monthly promo roundup (You might want to brace yourself for the .net promo. It's a big one).

Other than that, we're busy preparing. Now, about that #gandiv5 thing we mentioned ...

#gandiv5

We're currently on version 4 of our website, but we are rapidly hurdling towards the beta of version 5, which today we're christening with the hashtag #gandiv5. We're not quite ready to unveil anything yet, but here's a sneak peak of what you can look forward to:

• New account dashboard
• Multi-organization management under a single account
• Redesigned DNS service
• AI-enhanced domain search
• Mobile-friendly responsive design

Stay tuned of course for more news and updates with #gandiv5.

Back to top

Recently-Delegated TLDs

While we're busy with #gandiv5, ICANN seems preoccupied too. Only seven TLDs were delegated this past month and only two of those weren't brand TLDs.

Get a quick summary of those new TLDs | Back to top

In depth: So about that IANA transition ...

What could have been preoccupying ICANN this past month? Maybe it has something to do with the much-debated IANA transition; When ICANN's contract to manage the IANA function expired and this authority devolved back to ICANN.

De facto, IANA functions have been independent of the US government since ICANN's inception. But now that's officially the case. We reviewed the how and the why this month.

See for yourself here | Back to top

TLD release Calendar

Just three TLDs will be or have already been released this month:

Thursday October 6:

.cam (Sunrise)

Wednesday October 26:

.doctor (Landrush)

Thursday October 27:

.网站 (.xn--5tzm5g "website") (Landrush )

Stay tuned for updates!

Back to top

Promo Roundup

There are plenty of promos currently ongoing, many ending at the end of the year, but a couple in particular that we wanted to point out. Both .moe and .net are on promotion for a limited amount of time this week. And .net is especially juicy: it will be just $2.00 for the next three days. Here's the full roundup:

Starting October 1:

.live, .studio, .video half-price through December 31
.design $10.00 through November 30

Starting October 10:

.moe half-price through October 16 only

Starting October 11:

.net $2.00 through October 13 only, FLASH PROMO

Starting October 15:

.whoswho half-price through January 31 

Starting October 16:

.desi half-price through December 31

Ending October 31:

.barcelona $25.00 through October 31
.brussels,.vlaanderen $5.00 through October 31

Ongoing promotions:

Premium .online, .press, .store, .tech, .website on sale
.link $4.50 through November 30
.photo $5.00 through November 30
.audio, .hiphop, .guitars $9.03, $12.84 , and $16.22 through November 30
.store $7.99 per year in GoLive through December 31
.stream $2.00 per year in GoLive
.me $14.40 through December 31
.accountant, .bid, .cricket, .date, .download, .faith, .loan, .party, .racing, .review, .science, .trade, .webcam, .win $2.00 per year through December 31
.live, .studio, .video 50% off through December 31
.online, .press, .website, .site, .host, .space, .pw, .tech on promo through December 31
.tech, .online, .site renewals 50% off through December 31
 .xyz $3.99 per year through December 31
.black, .blue, .pink, .red, .lgbt, .kim, .shiksha, .poker, .pro, .info, .mobi, .移动 50% off until December 31 (previously June 30)
.gdn $1.50 until until December 31

Back to top

Things are changing, it's not just us. Thanks for choosing Gandi, we're glad to have you on board. And stay aboard for #gandiv5. We'll have more to show you soon ...

In the meantime, you can tweet us @gandibar, email us at feedback@gandi.net, on Facebook, G+, or contact us on the #gandi channel on Freenode. \o/

Sincerely,

Gandi.net