Murky fight over .VG

 Since 1999, English company AdamsNames Ltd has handled the administration of Top Level Domains (TLDs) for Grenada (.gd),  the Turks & Caicos Islands (.tc) and more importantly for us, the British Virgin islands (.vg).  However, two companies and a number of individuals, are now fighting over these rights in a very murky dispute.

It seems that there were some underhand goings on in early March this year, and you can read the full trail of statements from AdamsNames here and an article by TLD source here.

Importantly, for a period in March, the domains www.adamsnames.net and www.adamsnames.org were not in the control of AdamsNames Ltd and the company is recommending that anyone who registered, deleted or transferred .gd, .tc, or .vg domains from 8th March 2013 onwards, should contact them for “validation purposes as soon as possible”.

This dispute is now in the hands of ICANN and IANA but it seems a clear cut outcome is some way off.  Hopefully, it won’t affect existing domain names and the worst-case scenario at the end of this dispute (for .VG users and not AdamsNames) is that there are two companies handling the administration of these TLDs.  It’s probably unlikely that the .VG domain will stop working, but an emergency domain name up the corporate sleeve is not a bad idea, together with a communications plan to let clients know about the new domain if redirecting the old .VG domain proves problematic.

While this dispute remains unresolved big registrars like GoDaddy are not accepting .VG and .TC registrations.  Anyone planning a new .VG registration needs to go directly to AdamsNames at adamsnames.com.

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