Latest news of the domain name industry

Recent Posts

Toilet-maker’s dot-brand gets flushed

Kevin Murphy, September 1, 2021, 15:37:48 (UTC), Domain Services

A Japanese building materials company known for its smart toilets has become the latest multi-billion-dollar brand to decide it doesn’t need a gTLD of its own.

Lixil, which turned over roughly $12 billion in its last fiscal year, has told ICANN to tear up its .lixil registry agreement.

No specific reason was given, but it appears the gTLD was lightly used — just one domain was active, and it redirected to lixil.com.

As usual, ICANN has determined that, as a dot-brand, .lixil will not be redelegated and instead simply removed from the root.

It’s number 94 on the dot-brand dead list, the sixth this year.

Comments (4)

  1. amplify says:

    Japan is just fine with 3rd level domains. I’ve seen a couple of new geo gTLDs where I’m from pop up here and there (.okinawa), but the majority conform and stick with .co.jp/.ne.jp.

  2. Ron Jackson says:

    “Smart toilet” in an oxymoron. If it was truly smart, a toilet would get out of the way as soon as a human approached it!

Add Your Comment