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A new gTLD kills itself off for the second time
Kevin Murphy,
January 18, 2018, 09:01:32 (UTC),
Domain Registries
British pharmacy chain Boots has applied to ICANN to terminate its dot-brand contract for the second time.
The company asked for its .boots Registry Agreement, signed in 2015, to be ended in December and ICANN opened the request for public comment this week.
What’s weird about the request is that Boots had already asked for self-termination last April, but that request was subsequently withdrawn by the company.
Boots seems to have changed its mind, twice, in a year.
As I noted first time around, .boots was the first example of a dot-brand that also matches a generic class of goods to chose the easy way out.
It’s quite likely the two-year freeze on re-applying for the string, should anyone want to, will be over by the time the next new gTLD application window opens.
.boots only had the contractually mandated placeholder domain nic.boots live.
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They should talk to .MCDONALDS who withdrew its applications too 🙂
Old .mcdonalds had some .boots, iaiaiacthulhufgtagn!
At least they had the sense to correct a bad decision.