Recent Posts
- Group crowdfunding crypto to apply to ICANN for blockchain gTLD
- Buyer “phasing out” domain “bought for $2.2 million”
- ShortDot drops premium fees on millions of domains
- Tucows’ domains business stagnates again in Q2
- Malaysia relaxes travel restrictions ahead of ICANN 75
- GMO to sell Unstoppable’s crypto domains
- More rules, but cozier ICANN 75 expected
- India offers dollar regs to celebrate independence
- auDA updates on 2LD .au sales
- At $15 million, nfts.com becomes second-biggest domain sale ever
- Now Nokia scraps a dot-brand
- InternetNZ appoints new CEO
- Looks like XYZ bought another gTLD
- Bugatti dumps dot-brand under new owners
- In pictures: from tuk-tuks to cheese wheels, every ICANN national stereotype 2016-2022
- Did ICANN pay for most meeting attendees to show up in The Hague?
- Verisign announces ANOTHER price increase as regs slide
- CentralNic signs Greenland deal
- Early “dot-brand” adopter wants to scrap its gTLD
- Verisign to mandate 2FA for .com registrars
- Unstoppable valued at over $1 billion after huge new investment
- ICANN staffer to referee closed generics fight
- Covid vaccine maker takes RDNH loss to ICANN board
- Guy asks ICANN to shut down prostitution site
- No smoking! Rules laid down as .kids reveals launch dates
- Nominet sold security unit for a dollar after blowing $23.5 million
- CentralNic revenue almost doubles
- Feds warn of Covid risk from “dark” Whois
- ICANN names NomCom chairs
- ICANN’s top brass get pay raises
- New gTLD prep work delayed until December
- New gTLDs WILL be delayed by Whois work
- ICANN backtracks on legal waiver for ICANN 75
- Community tells ICANN to walk and chew gum at the same time
- Five things I learned from UK prime minister candidates’ domain names
- Universal unacceptance? ICANN lets XYZ dump languages from UNR gTLDs
- ICANN terminates these three deadbeat registrars
- .xyz kicks France out of the top 10 TLDs — Verisign
- ICANN puts blockchain on the agenda for good
- New gTLD in trouble as largest registrar gets suspended
- ICANN picks comms firm for new gTLDs outreach
- Donuts goes with bland, forgettable, for new company name [rant]
- Broker says it will sue after DNS abuse sting operation
- Unstoppable targets another city gTLD with free domains
- Dynadot takes down its own web site after apparent breach
- The slow crawl to closed generics at ICANN 74
- Controversial Chinese firm among two newly revealed UNR gTLD buyers
- Over 900 people show up for ICANN 74
- Verisign and Afilias spar over .web delays
- Hamburg selected for next year’s ICANN AGM
- Amazon governments not playing ball with Amazon’s .amazon
- High fives, or elbows only? ICANN 74 intros traffic light system for socializing
- NetBeacon goes live for DNS abuse reporting
- As registration closes, many ICANN 74 sessions at bursting point
- Belarusian domains to change hands
- As GoDaddy shutters URL shortener, could x.co come back on the market?
- Nominet opens directorship nominations
- GoDaddy acquires two education-themed gTLDs
- Crypto domains: a feminist issue?
- Turkey name change could free up gTLD string
- Porkbun offering free .gay domains for Pride month
- DNSAI to name most-abused registries, registrars
- NameSilo profitable in Q1
- Meds regulator won’t say why it gets domains suspended
- Porkbun hits a million domains
- Porn names to feature at NamesCon Global
- Pizza company suffers from penisland syndrome
- Seat reservations and waiting lists on the cards for ICANN 74
- New gTLDs or Whois access? What’s more important?
- Domain sales down even as revenue booms at CentralNic
- ICANN kicks the can on .web yet again
- ALAC’s brutal takedown of that “aggressive” ICANN 74 coronavirus waiver
- .link gTLD buyer revealed
- After 10 months, ICANN board “promptly” publishes its own minutes
- China yanks Daily Stormer domain after Buffalo mass shooting
- Fewer domain companies closing down than expected
- ICANN highlights “not getting things done” risk
- Another single-TLD brand protection service planned
- Dot Hip Hop slashes prices 80% in relaunch
- Three gTLDs to lose Donuts trademark protection
- Tucows to reanimate Tucows brand as sales flatten
- Blockchain domains pose “significant risks” to internet, says ICANN
- Russian registry hit with second breach notice after downtime
- Two countries could lose registrar competition after breach notices
- .tattoo — another UNR gTLD auction winner emerges
- Neustar now linked to scandal in the Catholic church
- SSAD: Whois privacy-busting white elephant to be shelved
- ICANN reports shocking increase in pandemic scams
- Kaufmann selected for ICANN board
- Secondary market fluffs GoDaddy amid slowdown concerns
- Washington DC picked for ICANN 77
- UDRP suspended in Ukraine
- Gee, thanks. auDA cuts price of .au names by five cents
- ICANN salary porn: 2021 edition
- A sign of things to come? Verisign slashes outlook in post-pandemic slowdown
- UDRP comments reveal shocking lack of trust in ICANN process
- CentralNic sees 51% growth in Q1
- Ukraine won’t delete domains until war is over
- Covid surge scuppers ICANN LA meetings
- Vox Pop defends its favorite cybersquatter
- ICANN picks recipient of $1 million Ukraine aid
- More friction over closed generics
- ICANN’s Covid-19 waiver formally appealed
- GoDaddy and XYZ sign away rights after UNR’s crypto gambit
- Verisign wipes free TLDs from the world stats
- ICANN picks 28 registries for abuse audit
- TMCH turning off some brand-blocking services
- Bye-bye Alice’s Registry
- .kids goes live, plans to launch this year
- ICANN suggests its Covid waiver may be worthless
- Domain sales exempt from US sanctions on Russia
- African Union can’t register .africa domain
- Microsoft seizes domains Russia was using to attack Ukraine
- Blacknight objects to ICANN 74 Covid waiver
- DNS Abuse Institute names free tool NetBeacon, promises launch soon
- Radix renewals drive growth as revenue hits $38 million
- GoDaddy formally signs .tv registry contract
- ICANN lists the reasons I probably won’t be going to ICANN 74
- A public apology for my April Fool’s blog post
- ICANN accidentally summons Lesser Old One in DNSSEC snafu
- ICANN “volunteers” want to get paid for sitting through pandemic Zoom calls
- War fails to stop .ua domains selling
- Marby pledges low red tape in $1 million Ukraine donation
- 2LDs boost .au’s growth
- With mystery auction winner, .sexy prices go from $25 to $2,500
Amazon and Google deal on .talk, .play, .drive and others
Google and Amazon have started making deals to settle their new gTLD contention sets.
Google won three contention sets against Amazon this week, judging by the latest withdrawals, while Amazon won two.
Amazon won .talk and .you after Google, the only other applicant, withdrew.
Neither company appears to have a “You” brand, unless you count YouTube, but the .talk settlement strongly suggests that Google Talk, the company’s instant messaging client, is on the way out.
When Google applied for .talk in 2012 it intended to give Talk users custom domains to act as a contact point, but in 2013 Google started to indicate that it will be replaced as a brand by Google Hangouts.
The withdrawal seems to suggest that the existence of a gTLD application, a relatively small investment, is not an overwhelming factor when companies consider product rebranding.
I wonder what effect a live, active TLD will have on similar decisions in future.
But Google won the two-horse races for .dev and .drive and after Amazon withdrew its applications.
Google has a product called Google Drive, while Amazon runs Amazon Cloud Drive. Both companies have developer programs, though Google’s is arguably the more substantial of the two.
Google has also won .play — Google Play is its app store — after Amazon, Radix and Star Registry’s withdrawals. Amazon does not have a Play brand.
Google has also withdrawn its application for .book, leaving six remaining applicants, including Amazon, in the contention set.
I don’t currently know whether these contention sets were settled privately or via a third-party auction.
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