Recommendation
Our overall advice is to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) to find a registry partner. Our RFP Guide provides examples of the questions you will want answered in the proposals you solicit with the RFP.
Even if you don’t have time for an RFP, the RFP Guide should assist in conducting your due diligence.
Profile of a Successful Registry Partner
In our view, a successful registry partner would look a lot like our company, Minds + Machines. We are founders of ICANN with an experienced management team who have a combined 50 years of successful experience in starting and running top-level domains, and our software is the most widely deployed registry platform in the world, powering 24 top-level domains today.
Five Things Your Registry Partner Must Be Able to Do
Whether it’s us or a competitor, however, a registry operator needs to be able to do the following, either alone or in combination with specialist partners (a common arrangement).
- Provide and operate secure, fault-tolerant TLD registry hardware and software.
- Provide and operate secure, fault-tolerant DNS (Domain Name System), which allows resolution of the domain name and therefore connectivity to the rest of the Internet.
- Successfully market and brand the top-level domain. Because ICANN is expected to approve hundreds of new TLDs, the ability to stand out is crucial for success. Your registry partner should be willing to commit to some marketing expense.
- Work with the city to craft workable registration and operational policies and to ensure adherence to them. Such policies could include rules for registration eligibility; prevention of intellectual property theft; prevention of spam, phishing, pharming, obscenity or other illegal activities; reservation of names by the city for governmental purposes; allocation methods for valuable names; and many other areas. Your registry partner should be conversant with the issues and have experience in administering policies.
- Be proficient in its understanding of the ICANN processes and have demonstrated ability to be effective within ICANN.
Using an RFP to Choose Your Registry Partner
In our view the fairest, most transparent, and overall best way to choose a registry partner is to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP), also called a tender bid. In many parts of the U.S., a proper RFP is required procedure for choosing vendors for municipal projects. An RFP has the following advantages:
- Is required by many state and local laws,
- Ensures that all interested competitors are heard from,
- Shows commitment on the part of the vendors; gets rid of fly-by-night candidates,
- Provides an example of the vendor’s work product,
- Allows the city to set terms and conditions of the partnership.
Our RFP Guide provides examples of the kinds of material that should be covered in an RFP.
