Amazon delays book and fashion gTLDs
Two gTLD launches pencilled in for next month seem to have been delayed a year.
Amazon Registry has filed updated launch dates for two Japanese-language TLDs: .書籍 (.xn--rovu88b), meaning “book”, and .ファッション (.xn--bck1b9a5dre4c), meaning “fashion”.
Both had been previously scheduled to go to general availability in early November, but new dates published by ICANN have pushed both back to the same dates in 2026.
Both have already completed their mandatory sunrise periods, back in late 2016. If they do go GA next year, it will have been a full decade between trademark protection and free-for-all.
Amazon has been slowly releasing its long-dormant stockpile of gTLDs recently. Three — .you, .talk and .fast — went GA earlier this month. Three others — .free, .hot and .spot — launched in the first half of the year.
GoDaddy loses last Amazon business to Identity Digital
GoDaddy appears to have lost the last remnants of its Amazon back-end registry services deal.
IANA records show that GoDaddy was recently replaced by Identity Digital as the technical contact for all of the remaining 12 gTLDs it was serving.
The gTLDs in question are: .coupon, .song, .zero and the IDNs .ストア, .セール, .家電, .クラウド, .食品, .ファッション, .書籍, .ポイント and .通販, which are generic terms for things like “fashion” and “books”.
Five of the IDNs have actually launched and have been generally available for years, but they’re been phenomenally unsuccessful — the largest zone has just 146 domains in it. The remaining seven are dormant, unlaunched.
Amazon originally used GoDaddy (then Neustar) for all 54 of the gTLDs it successfully applied for back in the 2012 gTLD application round, but it switched all but 12 of them to Nominet back in 2019, where they remain today.
Amazon readying fashion and book gTLDs
Amazon appears to be dusting off two of its long-dormant gTLDs, targeting the books and fashion industries ahead of launch next year.
But it’s probably not worth getting too excited about if you only speak English. The TLDs are .ファッション (.xn--bck1b9a5dre4c), which is Japanese for “fashion” and .書籍 (.xn--rovu88b), which is Chinese for “books”.
Updated dates filed with ICANN show Amazon Registry is planning to take both to general availability in early November 2025. That’s not a typo, the dates really are over a year away.
No pricing or registration policy information is available.
The two TLD have both already carried out their mandatory sunrise periods — eight years ago — and currently have 50-odd names in their zone files, which all appear to be internal or sunrise registrations.
Amazon has 54 gTLDs, a mixture of dot-brands and generic terms, according to my database, but only nine generics have launched and only two have registrations measured in the thousands.
The company applied for its dictionary-word, product-category TLDs at a time when it thought it would be able to keep them a closed shop where it could keep all the domains to itself.
Recent Comments