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Another VW car dot-brand crashes out

Kevin Murphy, February 18, 2025, Domain Registries

Volkswagen’s patchy commitment to dot-brand gTLDs is in evidence again this week, as the company has told ICANN it no longer wishes to operate .bentley.

Bentley is one of VW’s luxury car brands, based in the UK. It’s exercised its option to unilaterally terminate its gTLD registry agreement, with no explanation given.

The gTLD had a single resolving domain, which redirected to a .com.

It’s the first dot-brand to terminate this year, thought the notice seems to have been filed with ICANN in December.

VW’s attitude to its original portfolio of dot-brands has been all over the place.

Its .volkswagen, which one might expect to be the flagship, was terminated four years ago, along with its Chinese version, but .seat and .audi each have thousands of active registrations.

Com Laude acquires Scottish rival

Kevin Murphy, September 11, 2018, Domain Registrars

Brand protection registrar Com Laude has picked up smaller competitor Demys for an undisclosed sum.
Demys, based in Edinburgh, is an ICANN-accredited registrar that specializes in the UK automotive, retail/leisure, media and consumer goods sectors.
It also acts as the registry manager and exclusive registrar for .bentley, the lightly-used dot-brand of luxury car-maker Bentley Motors.
It had around 12,000 gTLD domains under management at the last count, about 7,200 of which were in .com.
It’s about an eighth the size of Com Laude in terms of gTLD domains under management.
Demys has a very light footprint in new gTLDs, with local geo .scot — where it is the largest corporate registrar and fifth-largest registrar overall — being a notable exception.
London-based Com Laude said it was also interested in the company for its brand monitoring services and dispute resolution work.
Two of Demys’ top guys act as arbitrators for UDRP and .uk’s Dispute Resolution Service.