--- title: Neil Fraser: News: .name Termination | daily.dev description: Verisign proposed eliminating the entire third-level of the .name domain hierarchy to simplify administration, and ICANN approved the plan on 28 July 2026. The... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/neil-fraser-news-name-termination-apw5z1o3z twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Neil Fraser: News: .name Termination | daily.dev og:description: Verisign proposed eliminating the entire third-level of the .name domain hierarchy to simplify administration, and ICANN approved the plan on 28 July 2026. The... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/neil-fraser-news-name-termination-apw5z1o3z og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/APw5z1o3Z.png og:image:alt: Neil Fraser: News: .name Termination og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Neil Fraser: News: .name Termination **[Lobsters](https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters)** · 3 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Verisign proposed eliminating the entire third-level of the .name domain hierarchy to simplify administration, and ICANN approved the plan on 28 July 2026. The author, who registered neil.fraser.name nearly 25 years ago for his website, email, and IoT services, explains that this will delete his site, break his email, and brick connected devices despite having paid through 2040. Worse, once third-level domains are terminated, the freed second-level domain (fraser.name) could be registered by anyone, letting them hijack accounts, impersonate his email-based authentication, and seize control of linked IoT devices. Around 22,000 domain holders are affected. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What happened to third-level .name domains after Verisign's 2026 proposal to ICANN? ICANN approved Verisign's proposal to destroy the entire third-level of the .name domain hierarchy, meaning domains like neil.fraser.name will stop working in February even though they were registered and paid for until 2040. Around 22,000 registrants are affected, losing websites, email addresses, and connections to IoT devices that depend on those domains. _Anyone relying on a .name subdomain for email or device authentication should track this shutdown timeline on daily.dev before it takes effect._ ### Why is losing a fraser.name style domain risky beyond just losing a website? Once third-level .name domains are terminated, the vacated second-level domain becomes available for anyone to register, letting a new owner recreate the original third-level address and hijack accounts, commit code under the previous owner's authentication, and seize control of connected IoT devices, since there is no way to enumerate every account tied to that email over decades of use. _Developers securing accounts against domain takeover risks can follow real incidents like this one on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 2 discussions and 291 comments across lobsters, hackernews (as of 2026-09-14). **TL;DR:** Developers are largely appalled that Verisign and ICANN would terminate .name third-level domains with no transition period, calling it reckless and warning that freed second-level domains could later be hijacked; a large side-thread separately dissects the technical oddity of .name's domain hierarchy and public-suffix-list gaps. **Sentiment:** 5% positive · 25% mixed · 70% skeptical **The pushback** - Terminating registrations with no migration window for existing users is seen as irresponsible given how much depends on them (email, logins, IoT). - Freeing up second-level domains after 3LD termination creates a serious hijacking/impersonation risk for former owners. - The request form submitted to ICANN is criticized as lazy and dismissive, suggesting the approval was a rubber-stamp. - The .name TLD's second/third-level structure is flagged as poorly isolated from a browser cookie/security-boundary perspective, since it's missing from the Public Suffix List. **By community** - lobsters (skeptical): Commenters are largely outraged at Verisign and ICANN, calling the move irresponsible and hoping for legal or organizational intervention, with some side discussion on domain-based identity risks generally. - hackernews (mixed): Discussion splits between strong criticism of Verisign/ICANN's handling and a long technical detour arguing the .name TLD structure was flawed from the start, with some skepticism toward the author's reliance on a niche TLD. **Hottest debate:** Whether the .name domain hierarchy was fundamentally broken/insecure from the start (making this outcome unsurprising) versus Verisign and ICANN being squarely to blame for an irresponsible, no-notice termination. **Open questions** - Will .name's freed second-level domains be reserved for some period to prevent squatting, or opened immediately? - Could another organization take over management of the affected second-level domains to avoid disruption? - Is legal challenge against ICANN's approval feasible? **Highlights** > This is nightmare fuel. Instead of selling the registry responsibility to someone who would care for it and profit from it, Verisign chose to murder it. And ICANN actively aided Verisign in doing this, proving (if there were any remaining doubt) who ICANN actually serves. Strange, and sickening. > — [cpurdy on lobsters · 18 points](https://lobste.rs/s/6tsncg/name_termination#c_v0pq8r) > Wow, even if there was a legitimate reason for the termination of all these domains, I can't imagine not giving at least a few years for registrants to update their...well, everything. It's just irresponsible to close a namespace on such short notice. I wonder if some organization could offer ICANN to take over management for all those existing second-level `.name` domains to avoid disruption of service. > — [bdn on lobsters · 10 points](https://lobste.rs/s/6tsncg/name_termination#c_e9uxqi) > At the beginning of the existence of the .name TLD you couldn't do that, you were forced to register firstname.lastname.name and provide an ID to justify registering this specific domain. With it you got an email redirection from firstname@lastname.name to the address of your choice. At some point this feature was discontinued (I assume when VeriSign took control of the .name TLD), a bit after it was decided (again by VeriSign) to allow registering first level .name domain. My main email address stopped working from one day to another without me being warned in any way. When this happened I've emailed VeriSign and my registrar at the time, and tried several time since then, to be able to register the first level domain I'm the only one using, but they categorically refuse, despite recognizing that a single subdomain has ever been registered. They kept saying that I could just let the domain expire, wait for the grace period, and register it once it's liberated, hoping that no one does it before me, and without any solution for the downtime in the mean time… And now this… fuck VeriSign -_- > — [p4bl0 on hackernews · 2 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49552699) > Whether disallowing renewals or terminating them tomorrow, there's still the same core problems, only the date of the offense changes: (1) seizing people's names that they've established, breaking innumerable things including email and server hostnames, and (2) the possible resale of the 2LD fraser.com to a third party who will be free to do malicious things like reading OP's email, redirecting his traffic, or extorting him, to sell continued access at any price demanded. > — [xp84 on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49554502) **Source threads** - [lobsters](https://lobste.rs/s/6tsncg/name_termination) · 152 points · 19 comments - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49550772) · 262 points · 272 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [What happens to TLDs when their country stops existing? \(2022\)](https://daily.dev/posts/what-happens-to-tlds-when-their-country-stops-existing-2022--w65wq9ipf) · Lobsters · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [GoDaddy warns India's fake-site crackdown could backfire](https://daily.dev/posts/godaddy-warns-india-s-fake-site-crackdown-could-backfire-4zl5rhn1r) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [How many consecutive hyphens can you have in a domain name?](https://daily.dev/posts/how-many-consecutive-hyphens-can-you-have-in-a-domain-name--jb24pgraq) · Terence Eden · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#security](https://daily.dev/tags/security), [#dns](https://daily.dev/tags/dns) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/neil-fraser-news-name-termination-apw5z1o3z) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Neil Fraser: News: .name Termination","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/neil-fraser-news-name-termination-apw5z1o3z","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/neil-fraser-news-name-termination-apw5z1o3z"},"datePublished":"2026-09-03T15:34:47.441Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T08:35:32.208Z","description":"Verisign proposed eliminating the entire third-level of the .name domain hierarchy to simplify administration, and ICANN approved the plan on 28 July 2026. 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