Amazon beats Google to bag .buy in latest ICANN auction
AMAZON SUCCESSFULLY BID $4.6m to control the .buy top level domain (TLD) name, according information just released by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann).
ICANN held an auction for three TLD names on 17 September, saying that there has been a lot of interest in them and that an auction was the best way to resolve this. It called the issue “string contention” explaining that it occurs when more than one applicant applies for a top level domain name.
ICANN said that parties interested in the strings were not able to sort things out on their own, and thus bids were taken.
The three auctioned suffixes were .buy, .tech and .vip, and you can imagine the sort of demand that these were likely to elicit.
The .buy TLD name was in demand by four parties. Amazon and a bid of $4,588,888 won out there. Icann said that the other three participants were called Bitter Sunset LLC, Buy limited and the Charleston Road Registry Inc. The last of these is the part of Google that is responsible for domains.
Six applicants went for .tech, and a company called Dot Tech won here with its $6,760,000 bid. Again, Google, or the Charleston Road Registry Inc, was an also ran.
Five outfits were jostling for the gauche .vip, and a company called Minds + Machines stepped up with a $3,000,888 bid and danced off with a victory.
ICANN does not know what it will do with the money yet, and will turn to the community for guidance. We hear that hot tubs are reasonably priced these days.
“The proceeds from these auctions will be separated and reserved until the board determines a plan for the appropriate use of the funds through consultation with the community,” said Akram Atallah, president of Icann’s global domains division. “We continue to encourage parties to reach agreements amongst themselves to resolve contention.”
The starting price for each TLD name was a lowly dollar. More auctions are set to follow, and Icann has quite range of contended TLD names to deal with. Upcoming auctions including sales of the .sucks suffix, which will be in hot demand, .cloud – likewise – and .dog, which someone is sure to want to get their paws on. Read more from theinquirer.
