ICANN has approved a request from Verisign to delete every third-level .name domain, addresses like john.doe.name, about 22,000 of them, including registrations paid for until 2040. Many registrants learned about it on September 3, 2026, from a Google engineer's blog post. If you own a domain, or log in anywhere with an email address on someone else's domain, this is a case study in who actually holds the keys to your name on the internet.
TL;DR On April 15, 2026, Verisign asked ICANN to discontinue third-level .name registrations. The only benefit it listed: "increase efficiency for the operation of the .name TLD." ICANN approved it on May 7 and published the letter on July 28. About 22,000 names will be deleted after at least 90 days' notice, which points to February 2027. The request form asks what effect the change has on the life cycle of domain names. Verisign's answer: "None." The bigger risk is what comes after: once neil.fraser.name is gone, whoever registers fraser.name could rebuild it and receive its email, including password resets. Verisign reported $435 million in revenue last quarter. The 22,000 names are about 0.012 % of its 179 million .com and .net domains.
.name launched in January 2002, run by Global Name Registry under a 2001 agreement with ICANN (Wikipedia). It was built for people, not companies, and at launch it sold only third-level names: first.last.name. The second level, last.name, was shared, so john.doe.name and jane.doe.name could belong to two unrelated people, each with an email address to match. Second-level registrations like john.name came in 2004. Verisign bought Global Name Registry in 2008.
| Level | Example | Who controls it | |---|---|---| | Top-level domain | .name | Verisign, under contract with ICANN | | Second level | fraser.name | shared, held by the registry | | Third level | neil.fraser.name | the individual registrant |
The marketing was explicit. Global Name Registry's consumer page, archived in June 2002, promised a "Web address for life" and said: "As your .name can be registered for up to 10 years and ownership is renewable, your .name really can be yours for life." Wikipedia now records that "Third-level domains were originally marketed as being 'for life'", in the past tense.
Neil Fraser registered neil.fraser.name in 2002. His "New Domain!" post of February 19, 2002 says it was "Time to move to a new domain, one that will not obsolesce quite so quickly". It carries his website, his email and APIs for his IoT devices, and it is "registered and paid for until 2040". He also registered beverly.fraser.name minutes after his daughter was born.
His post ".name Termination" says the website "vanishes in February", the email goes with it, and the devices "become bricks". "I'm just one of 22,000 people who will lose their domains." It ends: "Time to lawyer up..." On Hacker News it reached 2,213 points and 538 comments.
One detail stings more than the rest: Fraser picked .name in 2002 because it was not run by Verisign. Six years later Verisign bought the registry.
Registry operators change their services through ICANN's Registry Services Evaluation Process (RSEP). Verisign's request, filed April 15, 2026, asks to "discontinue third level domain name registrations due to declining usage and limited registrar support", adds that "existing third level domain names will be terminated", and lists the benefit in one sentence:
The timeline section promises registrars at least 90 days' notice plus a 30-day reminder, after which the names "will be deleted". Then question 2.1:
The rest of the form follows the same pattern. Technical concerns raised: "No." Effect on competition: "No, there will be no effect on competition." The quality-assurance plan: "internally tested prior to discontinuation."
ICANN approved on May 7. Its July 28 letter says Verisign consulted "the registrars that manage the majority of the user base", and they "did not identify any security, stability or competition issues". Registrants were not asked; a footnote explains that "registrars manage the registrar-registrant relationship(s)". ICANN also says its review "is limited to" security, stability and competition, and "does not extend to other potential impacts". Losing your email address is an other potential impact.
"The majority not in use" is Verisign's claim, relayed by ICANN, with no method published. Fraser's site has 24 years of posts.
One tried. Doytchin Spiridonov filed Reconsideration Request 26-2 on June 2. ICANN's Board Accountability Mechanisms Committee made its recommendation on August 24, and Domain Name Wire reported the request was "on track to be denied".
The reasoning, as quoted by commenters on HN and Domain Name Wire: "Early termination of a domain registration does not impact the life cycle of the domain, as the domain can still go through the various stages of a standard life cycle." ICANN "was aware that discontinuation… would result in the termination of approximately 22,000 third-level domain registrations and of email services/addresses." It knew, and it approved.
There is precedent for ICANN stopping Verisign. In September 2003, Site Finder redirected every non-existent .com and .net name to a Verisign search page. ICANN demanded it be shut down, and Verisign complied 19 days later. That was about technical stability of the DNS, which is inside ICANN's checklist. This one is not.
A domain that stops resolving is an outage. A domain that can come back under a new owner is a security problem. Fraser describes the second case: once the third-level names are deleted, the vacant second level fraser.name presumably becomes registrable. Whoever registers it can recreate neil.fraser.name, run a mail server for it, and, in his words, "hijack hundreds of accounts" and "commit code with my authentication".
The mechanism is ordinary. Most services treat control of an email address as proof of identity: The attacker registers the freed second-level name and publishes MX records for the old third-level name. They request a password reset at a service where the old address is the login or the recovery email. The reset mail arrives at their server. Whatever the account holds, they now hold.