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Justice gives nod to O.com auction
The US Department of Justice does not intend to prevent Verisign from auctioning off the single-letter domain o.com.
Aaron Hoag, chief of the department’s Technology & Financial Services Section, told ICANN in a letter (pdf) that it does not intend to probe Verisign’s proposal.
The letter reads in its entirety:
Your letter dated December 7, 2017, to Makan Delrahim, Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division, regarding VeriSign’s proposal to auction O.COM, has been referred to the Technology & Financial Services Section for review. After careful consideration of the matter, the Division can report that it does not intend to open an investigation into the proposed auction described in the attachment to your letter.
Verisign asked ICANN’s permission to auction o.com, with most of the the proceeds going to good causes, after over a decade of nagging from retailer Overstock.com, which desperately wants to own the currently reserved name.
It would set a precedent for the company to sell off the remaining 22 single-letter domains, not to mention the 10 digits, which are all currently reserved due to a decades-old technical policy no longer considered necessary.
Verisign would only receive its $7.85 base registry fee from the sale, despite the fact that single-letter domains could easily fetch seven or eight figures.
The company asked ICANN for permission to release the name via its Registry Services Evaluation Process last month.
ICANN said earlier this month that it had no objection on technical grounds, but referred it to US competition authorities for a review.
With the DoJ apparently not interested, the door is open for ICANN to approve the RSEP before the end of the year, meaning Verisign could carry out the auction in 2018.
The big question now is whether anyone other than Overstock will want to take part in the auction. Overstock has US trademarks on “O.com”, despite the fact that it’s never actually owned the domain.
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