Fire sale as .info domains go on sale for 99p

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 7 Jul 2008 at 11:50

Registrar 123-reg has started selling .info domains for only 99p per year ahead of an expected flood of new top-level domains.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) recently announced a massive liberalisation of the top-level domain process that could see thousands of new TLDs registered over the next couple of years.

Businesses will be able to buy new TLDs from $100,000, with speculation that domains will be created for specific regions (.london, for example) and industries (.music).

The shake-up could lead to an exodus from some of the existing TLDs, such as .info, which was already rumoured to be unpopular with website owners.

That might explain 123-reg's decision to slash the cost of the .info domains, which are normally sold for £8.99 per year.

123 says website owners are under no obligation to keep the 99p domains for longer than a year, although they will be charged the regular £8.99 fee after the first year if they wish to hold on to them.

The company claims .info, the first unrestricted TLD to be introduced since the arrival of .com, was used for four million registrations last year.

The most popular domain, .com, has more than 70 million registered sites.