Afilias, Inc.

Afilias se volvió valiosa en la industria de los nombres de dominio porque estaba detrás de nombres que otras empresas, registradores, gobiernos y registrantes necesitaban mantener en funcionamiento. Su historia no es una historia limpia de crecimiento de marca de consumo; es una historia sobre contratos de registro, delegación de DNS, economía mayorista recurrente de dominios y el riesgo de cambio que hizo que un operador de back-end fuera atractivo para un consolidado.

A US$135 million auction removed six rival .WEB applications from contention, but it did not determine who controlled the winning position, whether the funding arrangement complied with the 2012 rulebook, what independent review could actually remedy, or which company would ultimately be entered in the DNS root.

Afilias became valuable in the domain-name industry because it sat behind names that other companies, registrars, governments and registrants needed to keep resolving. Its story is not a clean story of consumer brand growth; it is a story about registry contracts, DNS delegation, recurring wholesale domain economics, and the switching risk that made a back-end operator attractive to a consolidator.