Three more dot-brands fizzle out. Total now 69, dudes
Three more dot-brand registries have opted to kill off their own gTLDs, bringing the total to date to 69.
The three self-terminating gTLDs, which all informed ICANN of their intentions in October and November, are: .工行 (.xn--estv75g), .nadex and .vistaprint.
The .vistaprint termination is perhaps of note, given that online printing company Vistaprint was one of the bidders in the 2016 auction of .web, due to its application for .webs being ruled confusingly similar.
It wound up paying just a dollar for that gTLD, due to the complexity of the .web contention set, but even that appears to have been a defensive move.
Since then, Vistaprint has also terminated its .vista contract, and my records show that it has been “in contracting” with ICANN for .webs since August 2016. Clearly, it’s in no rush to ever actually use the thing.
Also noteworthy, .工行 becomes only the second internationalized domain name gTLD to self-terminate, after Walmart called it quits on its pre-delegation contract for .一号店.
.工行 was owned by the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), which by many measures is the largest bank in the world. It had revenue of over $105 billion last year, so whatever factors drove its decision to dump its dot-brand, cost was not one of them.
Finally, Nadex, an online stock-trading platform, evidently couldn’t find a use for .nadex, so it’s jumped ship too.
Hundreds of dot-brands remain, collectively managing thousands of domains and web sites.
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Wake me when we reach 690, please, or when the U.S. Senate hearings commence. “The Next Big Thing,” indeed!