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Battles for .chat, .style, .tennis, bingo and .sas over

Kevin Murphy, November 6, 2014, 11:20:58 (UTC), Domain Registries

Seven new gTLD contention sets have been formally resolved with application withdrawals this morning, five of which we haven’t previously reported on.
Most appear to have been settled by private auctions, with Donuts often the victor.
The standout, however, is .sas, an unusual case of a contention set of two would-be dot-brand registries being resolved.
The business software maker SAS Institute, which applied as Research IP, has prevailed over the Scandinavian airline holding company SAS AB for the .sas gTLD.
Both applicants had applied for closed, single-registrant namespaces.
On the regular, open gTLD front, .chat has gone to Donuts after withdrawals from Top Level Spectrum, Radix and Famous Four Media.
.style has also gone to Donuts, after Uniregistry, Top Level Design, Evolving Style Registry and Minds + Machines withdrew their applications.
.tennis is another Donuts win. Applications from Famous Four, Washington Team Tennis and Tennis Australia have been withdrawn, after a failed Community bid from Tennis Australia.
Donuts, finally, beat Famous Four to .bingo.
Afilias and Top Level Spectrum have officially withdrawn their .wine applications. As we reported earlier this week, this leaves Donuts as the sole remaining applicant.
Top Level Spectrum’s bid for .sucks has also been withdrawn, confirming DI’s report from earlier this week that the controversial gTLD has been won by Vox Populi Registry.
But Donuts failed to win .online, withdrawing its application today. Only two applicants — Radix and I-Registry — remain in this once six-way contention set.
We’ll know the winner (my money’s on Radix) in a matter of days, I expect.

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Comments (2)

  1. anony (eroyalmail) says:

    Classic / established gtlds (.com) are they really g / global? Aren’t they perceived by majority outside the USA as de facto cctld for USA unless there is some other extrovert-practical need.
    The new gtlds being introduced where a small sample is evidenced (.chat, .style, .tennis, bingo and .sas ) in the above report:
    (a) are they being perceived once again as de facto cctld for USA and / or
    (b) is there new route to offer genuine g / global tlds for newer practical reasons because the world has become more unified / successful in the last 15 years and there is a real market available now outside the USA for g / global?
    If the answer is (a) then this has implications for the USA-centric domaining market and the new and SME. For the latter they have too much choice and expenses compared to someone in a real cctld operating country.

  2. Your money is safe: i-Registry’s .online application is marked ‘withdrawn’ now.

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