Fight shows complexity of new top level domain name process, and a city council that just left money on the table.
“Not so fast”, says a competitor who wants the chance to operate a .Vegas top level domain name.
Dot Vegas Inc. has struck a deal with the City of Las Vegas to launch and operate a .vegas top level domain name when (if) ICANN approves new TLDs. It has an optimistic view on how much money it can bring in to the city.
But the owner of Vegas.com wants in on the action, and offered the city more than the 75 cents per domain or 10% that Dot Vegas Inc. is offering to run the registry.
Too late for .Vegas? Well, Vegas.com has an ace up its sleeve. Clark County says the City of Las Vegas shouldn’t have exclusive rights to launch the .Vegas TLD. After all, The Strip is located outside the city limits, and many people think of The Strip as Vegas. So now Vegas.com is trying to work with the county on a deal to launch the new TLD.
ICANN’s current plans for releasing new TLDs offer special privileges to governments of cities, states, and countries for TLDs. It makes things really complicated, especially since capitals may get even more special rights. This is one example where the proper authority to approve a location TLD could be in dispute. After all, the group that “approved” this TLD should probably only have rights to approve .LasVegas, not .Vegas.
According to an article in The Las Vegas Sun, which is a sister company of Vegas.com, competitor Dot Vegas Inc. told the Las Vegas City council it needed to act quickly because ICANN was going to require “Expressions of Interest” in new TLDs in a week. If Dot Vegas Inc. really said that, then the city just got snookered.
Here’s my advice to the City of Las Vegas and to Vegas.com, if it’s not too late.
To the city: You’re getting ripped off. You’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars of your time evaluating a proposal that may earn you very little. You should be asking for 30%-40% of each registration. You should also ask for a guarantee rather than just a percentage of profits.
To Vegas.com: You win either way. If Dot Vegas fails, then you dodged a money trap. If it succeeds, you’ll get a lot of spillover traffic from people typing in Palms.Vegas.COM by mistake.
Jim Holleran says
.Vegas has as much chance to succeed as Bruce Marler lost socks from the playboy mansion party showing up:)
Thanks, Jim
Chelsea L says
While the city of Las Vegas is clearly getting screwed here, my guess is former mob lawyer Oscar Goodman is not getting ripped off in this whole situation.
/wondering if Chelsea L is going to have an “unfortunate accident” this week
Steve M says
I’m changing my last name to “Vegas” and filing a TM on it as well so that I can claim legal rights to .Vegas.
Isn’t that how it works? 😉
Andrew Allemann says
@ Steve M – unfortunately not. Even if a town was called CocaCola, they could probably get the domain over you. The draft guidebook has some rules about “community” applications as well as regions. I personally think all TLDs should be treated equally, but ICANN wants to make the process as convoluted and troublesome as possible.
Sumit Bahl says
I could be wrong but I do not see a “lot” pf potential in .vegas. Therefore very good poitn Andrew – “You should also ask for a guarantee rather than just a percentage of profits.”.
And Vegas.com, you will indeed get a lot of spillover traffic….unless something changes…like the way the browsers work 🙂