McDonalds terminates its .Brand gTLDs .McDonalds and .MCD
McDonalds has joined a host of companies that had applied for their .brand top level domain names and later have decided it’s not worth the expense or effort.
“The restaurant chain applied to run the .McDonalds and .MCD top level domain names, but it recently sent termination notices (pdf) to domain name overseer ICANN voluntarily relinquishing the two domains.
The 2nd May termination letter that was recently published by ICANN, not only asked that McDonald’s relinquishes control of the .McDonalds and .MCD TLDs, but slo asked that .McDonalds not be delegated to a successor registry operator for two years. Its only live website is attached to the .McDonalds TLD page at nic.mcdonalds that describes the fast food chain’s policies. ICANN has also just published a termination notice from Pampered Chef, a Berkshire Hathaway company, for .PamperedChef.
The termination follows a recent report from the International Trademark Association (INTA) that found that new gTLD registrations during the first application round in 2012 and 2013 were being made overwhelmingly for defensive purposes, costing brands more and creating no direct value.
INTA surveyed 33 brand owners on the impact that new gTLDs have had on enforcement costs for trademark owners. The results from the survey titled: INTA new gtld cost impact survey [PDF] gives some quite shocking revelations on the new domains.
Early this year, struggling gTLD registries through the gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) were asking ICANN for 75% temporary fee cut & add $3 million marketing kitty.
