The announcement that Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) had the winning bid accepted came yesterday from ICANN, the organization that control’s domain names globally. ICANN was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998. It is based in the Playa Vista area of Los Angeles, CA and has been registering domains since 1999. It most recently renewed its contract with the United States Department of the Treasury in 2008.
Google strikes out with three misses
In order to win, companies were made to pledge increasing amounts of money as the auction progressed. Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) came in second place through its registry service, Charleston Road Registry but finally dropped out of the bidding. Given Google’s cash horde, it’s somewhat surprising that it lost out on two other top-level domains that it was bidding on in the ongoing auction. The company was also aiming for the .vip domain but was beaten out by Ireland-based domain reseller Minds + Machines who pledged a touch over $3 million. Google was also looking to buy the .tech domain.
The fourth big domain was a pair of Chinese symbols that mean “information” in Mandarin.
In 2012, Google released a list of all the top-level domains it wanted to offer through its own registry service run by Charles Road. .buy was among the names on the list though Google never made it clear what it wished to do with it.
2011 began the domain “gold rush”
In 2011, ICANN announced that it was expanding the top-level domain range beyond .com .org and .gov. Amazon has yet to announce what it will do with the new top-level domain, as a domain reseller we presumably know what Minds + Machines will be doing with theirs.
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) called on ICANN to create a top-level .amazon domain but was rejected due to potential “geographic implications. Amazon has already purchased a number of anti-Amazon URLs, including AmazonSucks.com, AmazonStinks.com, ScrewAmazon.com and others.
