Volkswagen drives IDN dot-brand off a cliff
Volkwagen has decided it no longer wishes to run its Chinese-script dot-brand gTLD.
The car-maker’s Chinese arm has asked ICANN to terminate its contract for .大众汽车 (.xn--3oq18vl8pn36a), which has been in the root for five years.
It’s the standard terminating dot-brand story — the gTLD was never used and VW evidently decided it wasn’t needed.
The company also runs .volkswagen, and that’s not used either, but ICANN has yet to publish termination papers for that particular string.
Fellow German car-maker Audi is one of the most prolific users of dot-brands. Its .audi gTLD has over 1,800 registered domains, most of which appear to be used by its licensed dealerships.
.volkwagen is the 95th terminated dot-brand and the seventh terminated internationalized domain name gTLD.
If you find this post or this blog useful or interestjng, please support Domain Incite, the independent source of news, analysis and opinion for the domain name industry and ICANN community.
Recent Comments