Third-Level .name Registrations and Email Forwarding to Be Discontinued in 2027

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Third-Level .name Registrations and Email Forwarding to Be Discontinued in 2027

	By Daniel R. Tobias Programmer / Webmaster
	October 23, 2026 Views: 201 Add Comment

When the top-level domain .name was introduced as one of the seven new domains in the 2001 expansion of the namespace, registrations were taken at the third level, in the format first.last.name, intended for personal use. These domains were also associated with email addresses of the form [email protected], which could be set to forward to a mailbox wherever the user might wish to host it.

This was marketed as a web and email address “for life”. However, it appears the life of this service will be shorter than the lives of many of the people who signed up for it, as the current plan by the registry (now operated by Verisign, which took over from an independent registry that got the original ICANN contract for this domain) is to terminate third-level registrations and second-level email forwarding as of this coming February 15. This move was approved by ICANN earlier this year (RSEP 2026013 and RSEP 2026014).

Direct registration at the second level of .name of names not already in use within third-level registrations or email forwarding has been permitted for quite a few years now, and is unaffected by this change. Second-level registration of the previously reserved names that were used for third-level registrations or email forwarding might be permitted after a year, but no specific information has been given about how this is to be done.

This took those who use the to-be-discontinued services by surprise, some of whom have been using these addresses as their personal email and web addresses for as long as 25 years. Several have raised formal objections with ICANN, which can be found on the Requests for Reconsideration page. Objections include the difficulty of changing one’s email address when it is used as an essential element of many online accounts, often very difficult to change, as well as the potential for security risks should a third party eventually gain control of underlying second-level domains that could be used to recreate the web and email addresses of others.

By Daniel R. Tobias, Programmer / Webmaster

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