Latest news of the domain name industry

Recent Posts

Google beaten to .dot for a paltry $700k

Kevin Murphy, November 20, 2014, 10:34:01 (UTC), Domain Registries

Dish DBS, a US satellite TV company, has beaten Google to the .dot new gTLD in an ICANN auction that fetched just $700,000.
It’s further proof, if any were needed, that you don’t need to have the big bucks to beat Google at auction.
Dish plans to use .dot as a single-registrant space, but unusually it’s not a dot-brand. According to its application, the company:

intends to utilize the .dot gTLD to create a restricted, exclusively-controlled online environment for customers and other business partners with the goal of further securing the collection and transmission of personal and other confidential data required for contracted services and other product-related activities.

Google had planned an open, anything-goes space.
.dot was the only new gTLD contention set to be resolved by ICANN last-resort auction this month. The other applicants scheduled for the November auctions all settled their contests privately.


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.

Tagged: , , , , , ,

Comments (6)

  1. Gaz says:

    I can’t really see a compelling case for buying a .dot domain. I’m a bit surprised that Google went in for it in the first place.

    • Domenclature says:

      Isn’t surprising?
      My thoughts, and espoused them months ago, are that Google executives on the top-floor may not even be aware, and probably did not approve the participation in the new gTLD program; and possibly, as the amount of money required reaches the stage of a million or two, then they are approached, at which point they then yell “NO!” to the mid-level executives, who had been given latitude to “research”, develop new businesses, ride skateboards around the Google campuses and so on…
      Just a guess. Clearly somebody has authority to go only so far, and not exceed certain point, in this thing, over there.

  2. Reality says:

    Clearly Google have realized the writing is on the wall for new GTLDs. They may be cashed up, but there’s no point wasting money on junk.

  3. anony (eroyalmail) says:

    Although Google allows you to create through Google Apps full Internationalised Domain Names Gmail-based accounts, Google has not implemented Internationalized Domain Names for logging into Gmail with your email and password even though punycoded IDNs been around for a few years and full punycoded IDNs have become implemented also. The punycode nor the native characters are being accepted at the login screen.
    You are only able to do this and not the above as far as I can tell: http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/a-first-step-toward-more-global-email.html
    Google is thus not allowing punycoded Chinese or other languages punycoded Gmail accounts and is ignoring a lucrative market. Chinese tourists have helped London shops survive in the recession and Google is ignoring them, then why should Google have an office in China?

  4. Acro says:

    Dot dot? This one is a dud, period.

    • Kevin Murphy says:

      Well, it’s a single-registrant space. Sounds like some kind of extranet thingy. I don’t think the attractiveness of the string really matters too much.

Add Your Comment