Namecheap is an American ICANN-accredited domain name registrar[1] and web hosting company, based in Phoenix, Arizona. The company was founded in 2000 by Richard Kirkendall[2] and has since grown to become one of the largest independent domain registrars in the world, with over 10 million customers and over 17 million domains under management.[3][4]
Namecheap offers domain name services, including domain registration, transfer, and renewal, as well as domain privacy protection and other value-added services. In addition, Namecheap also offers shared hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated servers.
Namecheap has been accepting Bitcoin as a payment method since March 2013.[5]
In July 2019, Namecheap was one of the organizations that filed a reconsideration request to ICANN asking for a review of the decision to remove price caps on .org and .info TLDs.[9][10] As of September 2019, ICANN has ignored such requests.[11]
Termination of service to Russian accounts
In February 2022, Namecheap announced that they would terminate services to Russian accounts due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, citing "war crimes and human rights violations". Existing users were given a one-week grace period to move their domains.[12] The next day, the deadline was extended by another 2 weeks. If users did not move their domains, their websites became inaccessible, even if the domain registration period had not yet passed. The company also announced that it would be offering free anonymous domain registration and web hosting to all protest and anti-war websites in Russia or Belarus.[13] Namecheap at the same time said it had over 1,000 employees located in Ukraine, comprising most of its support staff, mostly in Kharkiv (which was a major location of fighting).[14]
