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Roussos sells his .home new gTLD application

Kevin Murphy, November 5, 2012, Domain Registries

In what I believe is the first instance of a new gTLD bid changing hands, CGR E-Commerce has sold off its .home application to another applicant.
CGR is the Cyprus-based company controlled by prominent .music applicant Constantine Roussos.
Among 29 changes to new gTLD applications approved by ICANN and published late last week were substantial alterations to CGR’s application for .home, which is contested by 10 other applicants.
All references to Roussos, his colleague Tina Dam, and CGR itself were removed, replaced by the names of executives from Defender Direct.
The applicant name is now “Dothome Ltd”, whereas originally it was “DotHome/CGR E-Commerce Ltd”.
“We just sold that company,” Roussos confirmed to DI. “All our assets and intellectual property pertaining to .HOME were transferred to Defender Direct, a company that also applied for .SECURITY.”
“They are the second largest home security company in the U.S and have a lot of resources to provide to create value in both the home and security arenas,” he added.
Back in April, while the new gTLD application period was still open, Roussos was known to be shopping around some spare TLD Application System slots.
The .home gTLD is one of the most-contested strings in the current round, but all 11 applicants face the risk that the string itself may be rejected on security and stability grounds.