Afilias looks set for $14m deal

ISOC has emerged best in a tendering round in the US to run the .org registry.

Internet domain name registry business Afilias is in line for a $14 million (€14.4 million) plus annual contract to provide back-up technical support to a US group that is tipped to win the right to run the .org domain registry.

Afilias, a US company with corporate headquarters in Tallaght, will provide the technical support to a group called the Internet Society (ISOC).

It has been recommended to run the registry by the staff at Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). That recommendation now needs to be endorsed by the board of directors at ICANN before formal contracts are signed.

A US-based spokeswoman for Afilias said there were currently 2.4 million .org domain names on the registry around the world, adding that her company would be paid $6 per name per year - $14.2 million - to provide the "back-end" technical support to ISOC to run the registry.

That figure does not include new .org names that may be registered in the future.

The deal is expected to be finalised in October, with Afilias and ISOC operating the registry from January.

Afilias already provides the back-end support for the .info domain registry.

ICANN president Mr Stuart Lynn said the company's involvement with .info had helped bolster the ISOC bid for .org.

"Afilias will provide ISOC with the necessary experience at operating a large registry," he said. "The .info registry already houses around one million domain names, which is on a scale that approaches the old .org registry."

Afilias employs a "handful" of staff at its Dublin office but also has operations in Britain, Canada and the United States.

In addition to its work on the .info registry, it provides back-up support to the .vc registry, which belongs to St Vincent and the Grenadines.

It is also an affiliate of AusRegistry Pty, the registry operator for the com.au, net.au, id.au and org.au domain registries.