DropCatch, the expired domains catcher has bought five hundred new registrars over the past week. According to reports, the additions give the company a total accreditation count of about 1,252 registrars.
DropCatch is owned by TurnCommerce, the parent of registrar NameBright and premium sales site HugeDomains. The addition of new registrars means that about 43% of all ICANN-accredited registrars are now associated with DropCatch.
The company says that gTLD registries rate-limit attempts to register names, therefore a good way to increase their chances of registering expiring names is to own as many registrars as possible. It has been estimated that the new accreditations would have cost DropCatch $1.75 million in ICANN application fees alone and will add $2 million a year to its running costs in terms of extra fixed fees.
The figure does not include the cost of creating 500 brand new LLC companies named in the new batch of DropCatch.com.