ICANN Approved Deleting the Entire Third Level of .name, Killing 22,000 Domains Some Paid Through 2040

Neil Fraser / Hacker News·medium signalXBlueskyLinkedInCopy link

Verisign proposed destroying the whole third level of the .name hierarchy (xxx.yyy.name) on April 15, 2026 to simplify administration, ICANN approved it on July 28, and the domains vanish in February 2027. Roughly 22,000 holders lose registrations, including Neil Fraser, whose post topped Hacker News at 1,924 points and who registered neil.fraser.name nearly 25 years ago; some registrations are paid through 2040. The security angle is the sharp one: once second-level names like fraser.name become registrable, a new owner inherits the ability to hijack email addresses, accounts and IoT devices bound to the deleted third-level domains.