Turning point for the IEDR?

2005 could signal a major turnaround for the Irish Domain Registry (IEDR).
In a press release issued on 26th April the registry reported a profit for 2004 of €880,000, compared with a loss of €1.2 million in 2002. The improved finances are attributed to a combination of cost-cutting measures coupled with a 32% increase in new registrations.
Over the past two years the price of IE domains has been dropped by 20%, which may have contributed in part to the growth in registrations. The increased level of automation combined with more frequent zone rebuilds has also led to faster registrations.
This news follows a number of significant changes to IEDR procedures in recent weeks.
At the beginning of April a list of deleted domains was made public for the first time . The list, which is divided in two sections, lists a selection of both generic and three letter domains. Although it was possible to find available domains using standard whois queries no “drop list” had ever been made publicly available. Some sources speculate that this may trigger a new “after market” in previously owned domains.
Another important change is that in relation to transfer policy. Previously a transfer did not extend the domain automatically by one year and, as the expiry date was not public knowledge, there was a perceived lack of transparency. Under the new policy all transfers will automatically extend the registration by 12 months, thus bringing it into line with the policy used by .com and other registries:
“Renewal payments will advance the .IE domain renewal date by one year. Each time the domain Billing Contact is transferred one extra year is added to the life of the domain”
In order for this to work the expiry date of domains has been made public, although they are still not visible via whois. The dates, in American format, may be viewed by running a query at: http://www.iedr.ie/dns-search.php Hopefully this will be rectified in the not too distant future, although the whois data format may still not be sufficiently verbose to satisfy some, as it unlikely that it will comply with RFC1032, due to restrictions supposedly imposed by Irish data privacy legislation.
Other areas of the IEDR site have also been changed.
The reseller list is now split into two sections with resellers handling more than 500 domains listed separately. There is also a section of the site containing information specific to charity domain registrations.
Does all this signal a new era for the IEDR?
Since David Curtin took the helm the company has changed significantly and has embraced change, although they have been haunted by the legacy of the previous management team headed by Michael Fagan. Mr Fagan finally resigned amid some legal controversy in November 2003 after being suspended on full salary in October 2002.