Recent Posts
- New rules could stop registries ripping off big brands
- MMX vows to refocus under new boss after crappy 2020
- Failed .org buyer Ethos Capital buys Donuts
- Crackdown looms for new gTLD auction gaming
- Would-be new country wants to share another country’s ccTLD
- 153 registrars fingered for ICANN security probe
- ICANN axes Cancun again. Apparently there’s a pandemic
- Gun nut site crashes at Epik after GoDaddy shoots it down
- It’s pandemic continuity versus gender diversity in ICANN’s board wish-list
- Free domains for .in registrants
- Here’s why two ICANN directors opposed extending Marby’s CEO contract
- Rules for the next new gTLD round near the final straight
- Island demands return of its “naked” ccTLD
- Donuts punter welcomes our new alien overlords in December premium sale
- Net 4 India gets unwelcome Christmas gift from ICANN
- Fuji Xerox kills off gTLD after rebrand
- EURid suspends 80,000 domains as Brexit transition ends
- GoDaddy’s female geeks make a bit more than men
- Donuts acquisition of Afilias closes, integration work begins
- GoDaddy pranks employees with “insensitive” phishing test
- US sneaks public Whois demands into pandemic relief bill
- Verisign drops half a mill on pandemic relief
- Mixed messages from ICANN on pandemic travel in 2021
- ICANN predicts rosy post-pandemic domain industry — time to start panicking?
- DI World Global International Headquarters is relocating
- ICANN throws the book at Net4 over dodgy transfer claims
- Fraud checks coming to .ch as SWITCH renews contract
- South African registry to be merged with film censor, broadband regulator
- There’s one obvious pick for next year’s ICANN Community Excellence Award
- ICANN could block Donuts from buying Afilias
- Westerdal offloads two more gTLDs to Donuts
- Whois privacy group finds its new chair
- Three more new gTLDs blink out of existence
- NamesCon Europe founder Dietmar Stefitz reportedly dies
- Credit union gTLD changes hands to perhaps surprising buyer
- After 20 years, DomainTools takes its first VC dough
- Gay charities get first taste of domain cash
- CIRA hits major .ca milestone on 20th anniversary
- .org made $97 million last year
- XYZ launches its beauty-themed gTLDs with slashed prices
- “Criminal” domain suspensions drop again in .uk but thousands of pandemic domains frozen
- NameSilo in profit as sales rise 11%
- CentralNic more than doubles revenue as parking business thrives
- WIPO handles 50,000th UDRP case as coronavirus drives complaints
- Brits get small reprieve in Brexit domain crackdown
- Vaccine agency to get more domain takedown powers next year
- Domain growth dropped off in Q3, says Verisign
- Donuts boss discusses shock Afilias deal
- GoDaddy has a secret weapon in its push into corporate domains
- Donuts acquires Afilias to create registry giant
- ICANN finally addresses Net 4 India meltdown, but mysteries remain
- Masochistic mug urgently wanted for thankless, pay-free ICANN leadership role
- ICANN made over $500k in secret lawyer payments over [REDACTED] legal dispute
- .spa registry relocates to .xyz
- .forum sunrise period will cost less than half the regular reg fee
- .trust finds a new home with UNR
- Web.com acquires Kiwi registrar Freeparking
- GoDaddy set to pay millions to settle robocalling class action
- Tributes as “great mentor” Marilyn Cade dies
- GoDaddy sees 12% growth in domains revenue
- One-letter .lu domains could be bought for peanuts
- Another domain firm going private as Endurance announces $3 billion deal
- Verisign increases focus on .com after flogging public DNS to Neustar
- Blood on the boardroom floor after MMX admits revenue screwup
- Angry investor sues for 30% of new .spa gTLD
- Amazon sold rights to .box gTLD for $3 million
- Big pharma firm dumps its gTLD
- Facebook to enter the retail registrar business?
- .web ruling might not come this year
- Verisign sells a million more domains than it did last year
- Free speech, or bad faith? UDRP panels split on Everything.sucks domains
- The internet just got its first proper new gTLD of the year, and the timing couldn’t be worse
- ICANN may not meet again for a looong time
- ICANN denies Whois policy “failure” as Marby issues EU warning
- These eight companies account for more than half of ICANN’s revenue
- Lockdown bump was worth $600,000 to ICANN, but end of Club Med saves 10x as much
- That .sucks weirdness? Worse than I thought
- Something weird’s going on at .sucks
- Are 25x price increases on the cards as XYZ corners the cars market?
- .gay and Star Trek star troll the right to promote new gTLD
- Forty weddings and a funeral? .wed is dead but may come up for auction
- Holy Scheisse! Did you know ICANN 69 starts TOMORROW?
- MMX probing accounting of mystery contract
- NamesCon will be back to in-person events next July
- .eu registry contract up for grabs
- EURid suspends and delays thousands of coronavirus domains
- .jobs plans to raise millions from premium names after dumping its sponsor
- Peaceful transfer of power? GNSO’s next chair is a shoo-in
- Two American women appointed to ICANN board
- Europe’s top dogs could decide the future of Whois
- ICANN playing ping-pong on closed generics controversy
- Has ICANN cut off its regulatory hands?
- Will you shut up, man? Trump takedown domain on sale for ridiculous fee
- MMX revenue down even as sales rise during pandemic
- This ICANN comment period is a Kafkaesque nightmare
- Could .cpa be the most successful new gTLD sunrise yet?
- ICANN 69 returning to YouTube
- Three-letter .blog domains priced up to $100k
- Whois plan approved, but it may be a waste of money
- Should YOU have to pay when lawyers access your private Whois info?
- Nominet shuts down “hostile” discussion forum
- Donuts to launch .contact next week
- GoDaddy denies weird front-running claim
- Is India’s largest registrar about to go titsup? And where the hell is ICANN?
- Webcentral rejects Web.com buyout bid for LOWER offer from Aussie telco
- Portugal reports lockdown boom continued through the summer
- No ICANN meetings until 2021
- ZADNA hikes up the price of .za domains
- Floodgates, open! Trademark Clearinghouse now supports .com
- Radix premium renewals approach $1 million
- GoDaddy could lose control of .co this week
- ICANN ordered to freeze .hotel after “serious questions” about trade secrets “theft”
- CentralNic parking boosts revenue even as its registrars suffer
- ICANN will spend $51,000 on your broadband
- Verisign measures the industry’s lockdown bump
- ICANN apologizes to “arms dealer” claim security firm after email goes missing
- Amazon waves off demand for more government blocks
- Told us so? Nominet ditches auctions plan, will charge drop-catchers higher fees instead
- Schreiber really did sue you all, sorry
- Fight over closed generics ends in stalemate
- New gTLD prices could be kept artificially high
- Here’s what’s in the NamesCon Online schwag bag
- New back-end approval program could reduce the cost of a new gTLD
- Single/plural gTLD combos to be BANNED
- ICANN might pay for your lockdown broadband
Google buys .app for over $25 million
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.
Related posts (automatically generated):
Second last-resort gTLD auction raises $14.3m
Google beaten to .dot for a paltry $700k
ICM buys .sex for up to $3 million
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.