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The platform said the new option is designed for those seeking ‘the ultimate security and longevity for their digital presence’.
Hosting platform WordPress has announced a new century-long domain registration plan for users who want to ensure a lifelong digital legacy.
Its new 100-year plan is designed to give users “the ultimate security and longevity for their digital presence” at a cost of $38,000 – working out at $380 per year of the plan.
While average domain registrations range from one year to a maximum of 10 years, WordPress’s new plan allows users to secure their domain for 100 years.
The plan comes with other features as well, such as multiple backups of content across geographically distributed data centres, unmetered bandwidth and “personalised” 24/7 support. The company also claims the plan comes with “enhanced ownership protocols” and “top-tier” managed hosting.
In a statement, the company said the offering could be used by families who wish to preserve their digital assets such as stories, photos, sounds and videos or by founders who want to protect and document their company’s history.
Matt Mullenweg, CEO of WordPress.com, said: “Whether it’s giving a newborn the special gift of a domain and lifetime home on the web, or something you put in your will to make sure your website and story are accessible to future generations, I hope this plan gets people and other companies thinking about building for the long term.”
Digital archives and online legacies have become a growing topic in recent years as the internet world continues to form part of society’s recent history.
For example, the Internet Archive is one of the world’s most well-known libraries for digitally archived books, movies, music, software and other forms of content and has previously worked to recover broken links for Wikipedia. It also captures billions of webpages that have been saved over time via its Wayback Machine.
However, the non-profit has recently been facing copyright issues, with major music labels slapping it with a $412m lawsuit earlier this month.
This followed a similar lawsuit for alleged digital piracy from major book publishers earlier this year, which the organisation is currently appealing.
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