Three more straggler new gTLDs coming soon
Three more new gTLDs from three different registries are set to launch this (northern hemisphere) summer.
Identity Digital is gearing up to launch .watches in June, while newcomer Digity will launch .case in July and Intercap will launch .box in August, according to ICANN records.
.watches was bought from luxury goods maker Richemont, which hadn’t used it, in 2020. It’s currently in sunrise and will go to general availability June 7.
Digity, which is affiliated with the registrar Sav, bought .case from CentralNic, which in turn bought it from industrial machinery maker CNH Industrial. It was a dot-brand, but will be repurposed as an open generic targeting the legal field.
Intercap is planning to start .box’s sunrise August 9 and go to general availability the following month, September 13. The gTLD was originally bought for $3 million before Intercap acquired it in 2020.
Amazon sold rights to .box gTLD for $3 million
Amazon relinquished its rights to the .box gTLD five years ago for $3 million, according to court documents seen by DI.
Amazon was one of two applicants for .box, the other being a company called NS1 (that’s the numeral 1; this has nothing to do with Network Solutions).
According to a complaint filed a couple of years ago that I came across today, Amazon agreed to withdraw its application, giving its rival an unobstructed shot at the gTLD, for $3 million.
It was a private settlement of the contention set and the payout was not publicly revealed at the time.
A $3 million deal puts .box in the same ballpark as public auctions such as MMX’s .vip and Johnson & Johnson’s (now XYZ.com’s) .baby.
While the deal is years old, I thought the data point was worth publishing.
NS1’s application suggests that its business plan was to offer registrants cloud storage services, along the lines of DropBox.
But the ICANN contract was sold to Intercap, which also runs .inc and .dealer, earlier this year. The plan now appears to be to operate it as an open niche gTLD, but no launch dates have been announced.
It’s not known how much the gTLD sold for second time around.
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