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XYZ relaunches .storage with $2,200 price tag

Kevin Murphy, November 8, 2017, 12:32:38 (UTC), Domain Registries

XYZ.com has reopened .storage to registrations with a new, much higher price tag.
A confusingly named “Trademark Holder Landrush” started yesterday and will run for three weeks.
It’s not a sunrise period — .storage already had its ICANN-mandated sunrise under its previous management — and it appears that it’s not actually restricted to trademark holders.
The .storage web site states that “neither registrars nor XYZ will validate trademarks during this period”. The registry says that all strings, including generic words, are available.
It basically appears to be just a way to squeeze a little extra cash out of larger companies and anyone else desperate for a good name.
There are not many registrars carrying the TLD right now, just five brand protection registrars and 101domain.
101domain prices the names at $699.99 with a $1,500 application fee during the trademark landrush.
XYZ says that the regular suggested retail price for .storage will be $79.99 per month which seems to be a roundabout way of saying $948 per year. There’s no option to register for less than a year.
.storage is designed for companies in the data storage and physical storage industries, so adopting a high-price, low-volume business model is probably a smart move by the registry.
It’s a similar model to that XYZ employs in its car-related gTLDs operated in partnership with Uniregistry.
XYZ does not appear to be relying entirely on defensive registrations to make its coin, however.
It’s offering a “complimentary” web site migration service, usually priced at $10,000, that it says can help early registrants switch to .storage in as little as 72 hours with no loss of search engine juice.
.storage was originally owned by Extra Storage Space, a physical storage company, but XYZ acquired the contract for an undisclosed sum in May.
The trademark landrush will be immediately followed by an Early Access Period, during which there will also be a sliding-scale fee (day one will be a whopping $55,000 at 101domain!), before general available starts a month from now.

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