Company paying $130 million for “contractual rights”.
The company that runs .com might soon be adding .web to its stable.
Based on an SEC filing this afternoon, it looks like Nu Dot Co was the winner of today’s .web auction and Verisign is behind the bid. (Update: ICANN has posted official auction results showing Nu Dot Co as the winner.)
Verisign (NYSE:VRSN) just filed its quarterly report with the SEC today. Under “Subsequent Event” it says:
Subsequent to June 30, 2016, the Company incurred a commitment to pay approximately $130.0 million for the future assignment of contractual rights, which are subject to third-party consent. The payment is expected to occur during the third quarter of 2016.
I’d be willing to bet big money that this is the .web auction.
Verisign was rumored to be backing Nu Dot Co’s bid for the domain name.
My sources tell me that the auction ended for $135 million this morning. It’s possible that Nu Dot Co retains some ownership in the domain, hence the discrepancy in price. (Keep in mind, also, that the winner pays the second highest bid).
The payment for this auction will be due in Q3.
Verisign didn’t mention .web on its conference call today and no analysts asked about it.
John says
https://domainnamewire.com/2016/07/28/breaking-web-top-level-domain-name-auction-ends-135-million/#comment-2239879
Acro says
The great news: It wasn’t the .XYZ Registry. 😛
John McCormac says
At least it wasn’t Google. Google doesn’t seem to know what to do with its TLDs. Verisign does and it will be interesting to see how it uses the gTLD. It really does put dotwebsite, dotsite and dotonline in the shade.
Joseph Peterson says
“At least it wasn’t Google.” Hear, hear!
This should also put an end to the false dichotomy of nTLD versus .COM, which has wasted so much energy. Imagine how strident and divisive the marketing would be if a separate .WEB registry had to make its case by disparaging .COM. We may have just side-stepped that zero-sum-game mentality. So maybe now the domain industry can make progress.
John says
Another welcome surprise I’d like to see is a departure from the money-grabbing premium nonsense of recent years where it’s all about those who have the deepest pockets, regular reg fees, and a return to the relative equality of opportunity that used to exist when new TLD’s would be released like .us, .info, .biz, and so forth, including for the best and most valuable keywords like in the early days.
YamadaMedia says
What about premium renewals on .TV???
Andrew Allemann says
Indeed, Verisign kind of invented the premium domain model, didn’t they?
John says
Yes or no, I’d still like to see them do that for .web. It would be a nice thing to do, and earn them a lot of points if they did it.
P.S. I don’t know if you’ve seen my email yet, Andrew, but I’m no longer getting any subscription confirmation emails to stay up to date on threads.
John says
P.S. Just checked my spam folder and they’re not there either.
Looks like also just pulled off putting “they’re” and “there” close together without any mistake.
John says
Hmm, but I left out the “I” in my last post. Figures…
Dave Wrixon says
Good Luck with that.
They screwed up the viability of IDN.coms over the their blood sucking greed.
VintCerf says
That means the company execs lied about Nu Dot Co and the management behind the company. I hope Donuts cues the crap out of ICANN.
Andrew Allemann says
They did? How? They didn’t sell Nu Dot Co to Verisign, and it doesn’t look like Verisign invested in Nu Dot Co.
Piotr says
But Verisign’s contract with Nu Dot Co had to have some kind of financial guarantees for the former and that contract was probably the only reason Nu Dot Co could allow itself to win the auction. One could argue that it’s the same as if Verisign invested in Nu Dot Co directly.
By the way, it was a brilliant move by Verisign to enforce the auction is handled by ICANN. Not only they got the best new extension within the model they compete with, but they have also cut off all the applicants from a substantial payout.
JakeyPie says
Agree in spirit at least it’s the same damn thing as investing in NDC. ICANN sitting on it’s sacks of gold coins aren’t likely to protest much.
kd says
If it is Verisign I would hope they bundle .web with .com – so that the owners of the .com domains get the .web as well. Would be a nice way to do it. That is, assuming they avoid the “bundling” that I think ICANN has provisions against.
R P says
Donuts, etc going to lose out on close to $20M each.
Which they don’t deserve. Neither does ICAAN. Should go to charity.
John C. says
I think Donuts just got Krispy Kremed! This is going to devastate the gtld playing field.
DNSal.es says
With the Verisign’s cash pile it is a wonder they are not buying most of the new TLDs. Maybe they shall one day.
Zenon says
Why? They all painfully suck, with the possible exception of .web.
They did the right thing.
@domains says
Smart of Verisign to take away their biggest competition. Domain market is probably too small for Google to worry about.
Michael Riedl says
Maybe even the fact that Nu Dot, if actually backed by Verisign, enforced an ICANN auction, represents covered up consideration to sign off on future com/net price increases.
Dave Wrixon says
The filling might just indicate the losers limit.
But it seems unlikely that they would want or need to include something at such short notice.
Dave Wrixon says
But confirmed at TheDomains.
Christian says
Well spotted Andrew, and great reporting.
You have an excellent blog! 🙂
Andrew Allemann says
Thanks Christian
Philip Corwin says
Last resort auction proceeds do not go into ICANN general revenues. They will be added to the $105 million in segregated proceeds from the other auctions with the ultimate use(s) determined by the ICANN community. My personal preference is to set up a separate foundation and use the money as an endowment funds for worthy Internet-related projects, and not to squander it in a one-time helicopter drop.
Doug Mehus says
Agree completely here. Perhaps such an endowment fund could fund Wikipedia in perpetuity if Wikimedia Foundation agrees to cut its administrative expenses of executive salaries to “bare minimum” levels?
When do we expect these TLDs to be delegated and also for ROs like Google and Amazon to make their TLDs won into general availability as promised?
Cheers,
Doug
steve says
In my opinion:
The 2 best GTLDs will be used as follows:
1) .web – as alternative to .com and .net
2) .app – Google will provide tools to build apps, hosting, indexing of app content, ads, in app purchase, deep linking
Niche GTLDs, such as .store, .club, .cloud, bank, .health, .insurance can provide value for their targeted markets, if they are run well
Many GTLDS now will be extraneous — if 20% have a pulse in 5 years I will be surprised.
Ryan says
Stop on!