Wow, this is a blast from the past. Long story short, the original performer (Neustar) won the renewed contract, but everything went to hell and they got taken

Wow, this is a blast from the past. Long story short, the original performer (Neustar) won the renewed contract, but everything went to hell and they got taken private by a PE firm. They sold off the entire registry unit to make some cash. GoDaddy had bid against Neustar for that contract in 2018, and lost (water cooler talk at the time was becasue the feds hated them), but won the war by purchasing a distressed asset.