1&1 Internet (www.oneandone.com), a provider of web hosting services, announced on October 26, 2004 that it provides .name domain registrations in the US market for $2.99 a year. The limited-time offer is valid through December 21, 2004 and can be used with all of 1&1 Internet’s web hosting plans. Current customers of the company can also order .name domains at the quoted price and there is no limit to the number of domains registered by a single customer.
Domain prices have decreased considerably across the industry in the last year since web hosting companies use low prices with the hope of attracting customers to their more profitable services. Dot5Hosting decreased its domain prices to $2.5 (www.dot5hosting.com) in August 2004. Hostway (www.hostway.com) and EV1Servers (www.ev1servers.net) decreased their domain prices to $6.95 and $6.49 respectively.
Andreas Gauger, chairman of the board of 1&1 Internet said that, the .name promotion was intended to help the company’s customers make a distinctive mark on the web. He noted that it opened new possibilities for uses who wanted to personalize their web presence with particular name that might not be available on another top-level domain. Gauger added that it was an additional way for 1&1 Internet to ensure that it was giving its customers all they needed to be successful.
