Verisign confirms it did fund $135 million .web bid
Verisign has just confirmed that it was behind the winning bid in last week’s .web gTLD auction.
Nu Dot Co won the auction after 23 rounds over two days of bidding, but Verisign was thought to be the real beneficiary.
The company has now released the following statement confirming the relationship:
The Company entered into an agreement with Nu Dot Co LLC wherein the Company provided funds for Nu Dot Co’s bid for the .web TLD. We are pleased that the Nu Dot Co bid was successful.
We anticipate that Nu Dot Co will execute the .web Registry Agreement with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and will then seek to assign the Registry Agreement to Verisign upon consent from ICANN.
As the most experienced and reliable registry operator, Verisign is well-positioned to widely distribute .web. Our expertise, infrastructure, and partner relationships will enable us to quickly grow .web and establish it as an additional option for registrants worldwide in the growing TLD marketplace. Our track record of over 19 years of uninterrupted availability means that businesses and individuals using .web as their online identity can be confident of being reliably found online. And these users, along with our global distribution partners, will benefit from the many new domain name choices that .web will offer.
No big surprises there. Verisign had already told investors it had a $130 million payment coming up soon.
See DI’s analysis on the auction results here.
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Excellent. I had seen people talk of shelfing the extension or first offering .com holders, like .uk did. This statement kills the first option and seems to lessen the possibility of the second.
There are some domains I will be buying in this extension, not to sell but to build upon. I think this will be a good extension to buy domains that would you cost you six and sometimes seven figures in .com for 2, 3, 4, or at a stretch 5 figures. I think the trade off in less credibility, not being .com, will be more than made up for in savings made.
Obviously if they do end up going down the .uk route you’ll find me crying in a corner.
Will be .coms poor cousin much like .net, will
Never hold the same prestige.
Smart money will see it as a man made knock off to create quick buck.
Whether Verisign shelfs .web or promotes it, either way it will probably mean the end of the line for the other new-gtlds, most of which were silly and served no purpose anyways.
This should not be allowed.