Finally revealed on March 27, 2013, ICANN have began releasing potential registrars to manage their own top-level domains. ICANN has accepted close to 2,000 applications from registrars who would like to have a chance at managing their own TLDs. With fierce competition quite a bit of negotiating, some applicants have decided to join forces to create a powerhouse to win over and manage their own TLDs. One such powerhouse is Directi, Tucows and Namecheap who have formed an alliance to apply for the management of the .online registry.
Two registrars from this powerhouse Directi and Tucows are known for the massive wholesale platforms and also the domain reseller platforms which they offer their users. Whereas Namecheap is one of the top registrars that manage retail sales of domain names emphasizing on customer relations and service.
With these three companies, each bringing some valuable to the table, have finally received the chance by ICANN to operate the .online extension. The 3 companies together have reach of over 40 million businesses and customers who use their hosting services. A massive user database and with their specialties in whoe retail and wholesale invidually, imagine what they can do when combined.
"This partnership makes perfect sense for us and it makes perfect sense for .online registrants," said Directi CEO & Founder, Bhavin Turakhia, Tucows CEO Elliot Noss and Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall at the exact same time, a powerful display of partnership and an impressive achievement considering the time zone differences. The CEOs continued, "Between the three of us and all our properties, we know we can deliver an outstanding .online experience to resellers and end users in every corner of the world."
