Recent Posts
- Mucho weirdness as Google “forgets” to renew major domain
- First deadbeat dot-brand ripped from the root
- Coronavirus helps .nl beat 6 million regs
- NamesCon Online ticket prices and name change revealed
- GoDaddy domains doing just fine during pandemic, lays off hundreds anyway
- I was wrong, rejected “racist” web site didn’t go to Epik
- World’s most deluded new gTLD applicant makes coronavirus pitch
- Does ICANN have a race problem?
- As the world burns, ICANN gives its richest execs huge pay rises
- Web.com is kicking out a racist web site. How long before it winds up at Epik?
- Over 660,000 “coronavirus” domains registered
- Watch three members of the ICANN community get assassinated
- “Horrifying” Zoombombing attack on ICANN meeting, again
- Coronavirus is saving ICANN millions of your money, but will it use the cash wisely?
- Half as many women apply for ICANN leadership jobs
- ICANN decision to cancel Hamburg was NOT unanimous
- NamesCon goes virtual with intriguing 24-hour conference concept
- Virtual cocktails coming to ICANN meetings. Really.
- More dot-brands dump their gTLDs
- GoDaddy, PorkBun and Endurance win domain “blocking” court fight
- You won’t need a password for ICANN 68 after all
- Donuts rolls out free phishing attack protection for all registrants
- .black gTLD has seen boost since George Floyd killing
- ICANN confirms Hamburg cancellation
- Bored? Try the DI Fiendishly Difficult Domain Name Pub Quiz
- Three big registries will take down opioid domains for US govt
- Should Epik be banned from NamesCon as racism debate spills over into domain industry?
- ICANN board tries to redefine mediocrity — literally
- GoDaddy starts protecting American customers’ privacy
- Will ICANN swap Hamburg for Zoom for 69?
- Top-level reshuffle as ICANN loses its COO
- Amazon finally gets its dot-brands despite last-minute government plea
- South Africa might raise, or lower, some wholesale domain fees
- Verisign says its coronavirus fee waivers have saved businesses millions
- Industry growth driven by new gTLD(s) in Q1
- World’s youngest country launches its Nazi-risk TLD next week
- Is ICANN chickening out of Whois access role?
- Irony alert! Data protection agency complains it can’t get access to private Whois data
- ICANN dissenter explains why she wanted .org sale approved
- CSC removes reference to “retiring” new gTLD domain after retiring new gTLD domain
- Google launches .meet gTLD after Meet service goes free during lockdown
- Aussie ccTLD surges under coronavirus lockdown
- Spring Break redux! ICANN picks Cancun for 2023 meeting
- ICANN’s .org decision was NOT unanimous, and it was made in secret
- Donuts kicks down .place fences after attempt at innovation
- .org sale officially dead
- Afilias promotes .vote domains amid US vote-by-mail controversy
- After Zoom trolling, ICANN 68 will be password-protected
- Despite Brexit, .eu actually returned to growth in Q1
- ICANN whistleblower expects to be fired after alleging budget irregularities, bugged meetings
- Portugal ccTLD says growth better than expected during pandemic
- The .org deal may be dead and buried, but calls remain for PIR to lose its contract
- “Dangerous precedent” as ICANN rejects $1.13 billion .org buyout
- ICANN may scrap its $0.18 reg tax in coronavirus “solidarity”
- Domain industry likely to suffer from coronavirus as ICANN slashes budget by 8%
- Decision on .org deal may come sooner than you think
- ICANN meeting got “Zoombombed” with offensive material
- CentralNic does not expect big coronavirus impact as it posts almost-doubled revenue for 2019
- Verisign expects to sell fewer domains because of coronavirus
- Coronavirus lockdown is working out great for at least one registry
- Coronavirus could cause “high risk of widespread outages”, ICANN says
- Free domains registrar gets FOURTH breach notice
- Four more dot-brands join the gTLD deadpool
- As ICANN meets to decide .org’s fate, California AG says billion-dollar deal must be rejected
- Whois privacy talks in Bizarro World as governments and trademark owners urge coronavirus delay
- GoDaddy signs up 30 partners to lockdown-era marketing scheme
- Kuala Lumpur meeting cancelled and ICANN 68 could be even trickier online
- Five SAFE ways to buy and sell domains during the coronavirus pandemic
- To show new focus on registry, Uniregistry dumps “registry” from its brand. Um…
- No ICANN tax relief for Chinese registrars
- ICANN declares coronavirus a “natural disaster” to protect expired domains
- Ethos clarifies .org price rises, promises to reveal number of censored domains
- End of the road for Neustar as GoDaddy U-turns again and buys out its registry biz
- ICANN to consider cancelling ICANN 68 tomorrow
- Coronavirus: more delay and free domains for .gay
- CentralNic seeing no impact from coronavirus
- ICANN expects “significant” budget impact from coronavirus
- ICANN’s number two Cyrus Namazi quits. Probably due to sexual discrimination claims.
- ICANN grants Verisign its price increases, of course
- ALL .za domains have to link to government coronavirus web site
- Namecheap and others banning coronavirus domains
- Go here to help fight against coronavirus abuse
- As it releases free download, DomainTools says 68,000 dangerous coronavirus domains have been registered
- No .com price increases this year. Thanks, coronavirus!
- US officials gunning for coronavirus domains
- Nominet to intercept dangerous coronavirus domains
- An open question to the domain name industry about coronavirus
- US senators tell ICANN to reject .org deal
- More ICANN events cancelled for May
- More domain industry response to coronavirus
- .org decision delayed another month
- Delay .org deal because of… coronavirus? Gimme a break
- Not every coronavirus domain registrant is a douchebag
- Roundup: domain industry starts to respond to coronavirus pandemic
- At ICANN 67, nobody knew you’re a dog
- GoDaddy cancels in-person investor day over coronavirus fears
- WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE! In other news, ICANN 67 was… “muted”
- Facebook WILL sue more registrars for cybersquatting
- ICANN chair: “all options open” on .org deal
- Could .org debate bring back the glory days of ICANN public forums?
- The latest industry C-suite musical chairs
- Poblete to replace Disspain on ICANN board
- Chinese registrars ask ICANN to waive fees due to Coronavirus
- Most languages won’t be available at ICANN 67
- Domain Incite turns 10 today. What the fuck have I done with my life?
- Ethos volunteers for .org pricing handcuffs
- Yup. ICANN cancelled Cancun
- The Queen has beef with Prince Harry’s domain name
- ICANN wants to take your temperature before letting you into ICANN 67
- ICANN might cancel Spring Break over Covid-19 fears
- Verisign shits on domainers, again
- 9,000 people tell ICANN they don’t want .com price increases. Here’s what some of them said
- Covid-19: It’s official, domainers are faster than journalists
- ICA will help you support .com price increases (but doesn’t want you to)
- .gay hires pop star equality campaigner as spokesperson
- Watch: climate change denier on why she trusts .org more than .com
- Ethos’ .org pricing promise may be misleading
- Hacking claims resurface as .hotel losers force ICANN to lawyer up again
- ICANN refuses to release more info on .org deal
- Possibly the strangest new gTLD acquisition yet
- California .org probe — existential crisis or blessed relief for ICANN?
- As Cancun looms, ICANN bans China travel because of Coronavirus
- XYZ expands gTLD stable as L’Oreal exits the domain game
- Is the .co rebid biased toward Afilias? Yeah, kinda
- Amazon governments vow revenge for “illegal and unjust” ICANN decision on .amazon
Google buys .app for over $25 million
Kevin Murphy,
February 26, 2015, 17:54:24 (UTC),
Domain Registries
The fiercely competed new gTLD .app has sold to Google for a record-breaking $25 million.
The company’s Charleston Road Registry subsidiary beat out 12 other applicants for the string, including Donuts, Amazon, Famous Four Media, Radix and Afilias.
The auction lasted two days and fetched a winning bid of $25,001,000, more than any other new gTLD to date.
The previous high is believed to be .blog, which I estimate sold for less than $20 million.
Because it was an ICANN-run “last resort” auction, all of the money goes into ICANN’s special auction proceeds fund, which previously stood at just shy of $35 million.
Previous ICANN auctions have fetched prices between $600,000 and $6,760,000.
Google originally proposed .app as a closed registry in which only Google and its partners could register names.
However, after the Governmental Advisory Committee pressured ICANN to disallow “closed generics”, Google changed its application to enable anyone to register.
No doubt that Google has major plans for .app.
Well, the Government Advisory Committee may have pressured ICANN to disallow “closed generics” but it does not appear to have stopped Google sitting on “.app”. Nobody in Google appears to know when the tld will be released nor know anyone in Google who might know. I have written to ICANN but no response as yet!
To be fair, .app hasn’t been delegated and Google hasn’t even signed the contract yet. It’s still in the ICANN process.
I tried to be fair by contacting various relevant departments within Google to find out the situation. Unfortunately, nobody was able to help. Its not as if .app is of fringe interest. I also wrote to ICANN and got no response. I know Google is a big organisation and all that, but they do promote spread of information and it seemed suspicious that they did not explain the situation to their own staff. Anyway, thank you for your comment.
Just FYI, Google has now signed its ICANN contract.
So where to next? How do I find out where, when and how I can register a .app domain name?
When Google launches .app, it will no doubt announce it.
Google may need time to extract all the domains they might ever find a use for!
Well, we are 7 months on now and still no signs of the “.app” TLD. I guess Google can get away with it because they are Google and paid ICANN a lot of money.
All registries can postpone their launch indefinitely.
Exactly. As far as I can establish, you can only complain to ICANN on the basis of some breach of registry specification 11: Public Interest Commitments. Surprise, surprise, it is not a public interest commitment to launch a tld within any specified period. So Google can, and probably will, sit on the .app ltd indefinitely. I’d be interested to know which particular public’s interest that might be. It stinks.