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The price of .bar was $100,000 to a school
Kevin Murphy,
June 30, 2014, 19:42:21 (UTC),
Domain Registries
Wondering how the new gTLD registry Punto 2012 managed to get government approval for .bar, even though it’s a protected geographic term in Montenegro under ICANN rules?
At least part of the deal seems to involve a 10-year, $100,000 commitment to fund a school in the tiny Montenegrin city of Bar, judging by a press release today.
The registry will pay $10,000 a year to the school for the duration of its 10-year registry agreement.
It’s a stroke of good fortune for the city. Whilst not a capital city, it’s also a ISO-designated administrative region of the country and therefore protected by the ICANN Applicant Guidebook.
Punto 2012 intends to reserve a few names for the city, and said it hopes residents will use .bar — intended to represent drinking establishments — as a city TLD also.
With a little over 17,000 inhabitants, Bar is likely going to be have one of the smaller city TLDs, and I expect most registrations will in fact come from bars elsewhere in the world.
In related news, as of last Friday there’s only one new gTLD application of the original 1,930 still under ICANN evaluation and it’s .tata, the dot-brand for a massive Indian conglomerate that is also the name of a province in Morocco. Coincidence? Probably not.
Guy walks into a bar …
Thanks for following up on this story, Kevin
I don’t know if any Registries actually have any charitable donations in their plans, so I think that this is a really good initiative, and one that will last for many years.
Another great initiative, although not around charitable donations, is that the .rest TLD (from the same company), which is intended for RESTaurants is already being used by real restaurants, thanks to an ICANN approved QLP program… you are welcome to see some examples at http://www.register.rest/showcase
And they actually appear on google search results really well!
As a disclaimer, I’m part of the Punto 2012 team
Using a donation to win a contention set is a good business move, but I don’t see it as charitable.
I will share with you some curious information:
Tha name of the school is “Mexico” and Punto 2012 is a Mexican Company
The school was rebuilt by the Mexican government in 1964, so this is not the first time that this school receives support from a Mexican institution
This donation is a fraction of many commitments that Punto 2012 made to the Municipality. Yes, there are business reasons behind it too, but to help the School was not mandatory at all, and yet, we decided to do something to help the people of the region.
In the end, whatever the reasons or whatever the facts, what matters is that this donation will still help the kids from the school have a better education, improve their facilities or enhance their opportunities.
We firmly believe that the spirit of gathering together and sharing is essential to our TLDs, and this is a small example which shows that we put our efforts into this ideal.
Actually, I have just uploaded a personal video from the event on Youtube (unedited properly, a bit long, and not with very good resolution… sorry about that!) for viewers to see the real people receiving something completely unexpected. You can see it here: http://youtu.be/vwudEpSITWo
Hope this helps bring everyone together as well!
I’m surprised our Amazonian friends didn’t work out a similar deal, with a couple of extra zeroes. Seems to me they could have established a fine fund to preserve/promote the region and respective native peoples.