Rightside to release 20,000 two-character domains
A week from now, new gTLD registry Rightside is to release over 20,000 two-character domain names.
The releases will come across all of its delegated gTLDs, but exclude letter-letter combinations.
Only letter-number, number-letter and number-number combinations will be available, following ICANN’s partial lifting of the ban on two-character domains back in December.
Strings such as “a1”, “2b” and “69” will presumably become available.
Rightside said the domains will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis, with prices ranging from $200 to $50,000.
The registry has almost 30 delegated new gTLDs, including .auction, .software, .lawyer, .sale and .video.
If you’re interested, set your alarms for 1700 UTC on March 18. That’s when all 20,000 drop.
Two-letter domains are still reserved, pending the outcome of ICANN’s government-delayed release process.
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$50,000 come on people reality check, artificial demand created product at this point. That is probably an annual renewal, forget it, watch the drops, and that will give you the answer.
Pure greed
Q: Why hold back on the LL combinations?
(Obvious) A: To auction them later.
ICANN hasn’t given permission for Rightside to release any LL’s yet.
No appetite to fight the GAC, I guess
Just look at each of their TLDs agreement, like this one:
https://www.icann.org/resources/agreement/attorney-2014-03-20-en
You’ll find an addendum named “All Digit/Digit, Letter/Digit, and Digit/Letter Two-Character ASCII Labels at the Second Level” at “Authorization(s) for Release of Reserved Names”, but not one for LL combinations.
There are some registries that got some or all LL combinations released thru a different process, and can see who was asked for LL combinations release thru the new process at:
https://www.icann.org/resources/two-character-labels
The same example TLD mentioned above has requested LL combination release, but it’s still in the now expanded public comment period.