This domain will be seized by Verisign on 2/15/2027.

In July of 2013 I registered the domain ian.maxwell.name for the purpose of making a permanent home for myself on the Internet. I had changed email providers more than a few times by that point and wanted a name I could take with me wherever I went. The raison d'étre of the name TLD fit my purpose well: it was explicitly for personal names, with registrations made at the third level rather than the second, and in registering ian.maxwell.name I also got the mail forwarding address ian@maxwell.name. I have used this domain without serious issue ever since.

However, on April 15, 2026, Verisign proposed the termination of all third-level name registrations. Not a gradual sunsetting where new registrations are not accepted and old ones are allowed to expire in their time, but a sudden termination of existing registrations, some of which (such as mine) are not set to expire for years. Remarkably, ICANN approved this proposal on July 28. At no point were any registrants contacted to offer their input on this decision. I first heard about it in an email from my registrar on August 26.

A request for reconsideration has already been made and rejected.

So, what will become of the currently reserved maxwell.name? Nothing has been said, so in the absence of assurance to the contrary I must assume the worst: that it will be sold to the highest bidder or to the fastest drop-catcher while I, the sole registrant thereunder for thirteen years, will not get so much as right of first refusal. Whoever picks it up will have full control of ian.maxwell.name, the domain I had made plans around holding for the rest of my life.

Here I could gripe and moan about the dereliction of stewardship shown by Verisign and ICANN alike in this event, and indeed I have done plenty of that and will probably do some more. But I will also take what measures I can to protect myself from the unknown future holder of my name. To that end:

• Come January 1, 2027, every page and document formerly served from http(s)://ian.maxwell.name will be replaced by a 410 Gone status code.
• I have secured a new email address with Proton Mail, and begun the long and omission-prone process of finding everywhere I have used my addresses ian@maxwell.name and *@ian.maxwell.name to update them. I do not expect to fully succeed at this, and that address is included in some places (such as SKS keyservers) where I can never remove it, but with enough effort I hope I will manage to avoid permanently losing access to any accounts I actually care about, or having them hijacked by whoever ultimately ends up in control of this domain.
• Eventually I may register another domain name for my personal use, though my experience here has soured me on trusting it to have any permanence. More likely I'll just set up somewhere on the tildeverse, which is at least up-front about the limits of its reliability.

If you have an email address saved for me with domain part maxwell.name or ian.maxwell.name, I ask that you scrub it from your records and not use it again. If you receive any mail from those addresses on or after February 15, 2027, assume it did not come from me.

If you know me personally you can ask for my direct address; otherwise use the one in the contact section below.