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Brand Registry Group seeks new executive director

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Organization is looking for someone to advocate for dot-brand top level domain owners.

the word .brand in stylized font on purple background

The Brand Registry Group (BRG), a trade organization that advocates for owners of dot-brand top level domain names, is looking for a new executive director.

Martin Sutton, the current executive director, is stepping down. Sutton was introduced to dot-brands when he applied for a top level domain while working for HSBC.

BRG counts many large and small brands as members, including Amazon, Fox, eBay, and Microsoft. It represents dot-brand owners at ICANN and raises awareness of dot-brand domains.

The organization says the new executive director will be the “face of the dotBrand community” and will need experience developing relationships across the ICANN community. The ideal candidate has knowledge or experience with domain registries and registrars.

More information is available on BRG’s website.

MMX returns £58.0 million to shareholders after GoDaddy deal

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Fully subscribed tender offer returns cash to shareholders.

MMX (aka Minds + Machines, AIM: MMX) has completed a tender offer and returned £58.0 million to shareholders.

The tender offer was initiated to return capital to shareholders after GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) paid approximately £88 million for the majority of its assets. MMX is (was) a top level domain name company and sold all of its remaining top level domain names to GoDaddy. Its assets included names such as .vip, .works and .xxx.

MMX bought back and canceled 69.0% of the company’s outstanding shares through the tender offer at a price of 9.6 pence per ordinary share. Shares are now trading for about 8.5 pence.

The company is now providing support services to GoDaddy for a limited time.

USPTO continues to refuse trademarks for alt-root and prospective top level domains

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Companies are still trying to trademark top level domains but the USPTO says no.

The word Trademarks on a dark blue green background with a stylized R symbol

Examiners at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office must feel like a broken record. Despite making it clear that the USPTO won’t issue trademarks for marks acting as top level domains, applicants keep trying.

Unstoppable Domains, a company that offers blockchain-based domain registrations, has filed trademark applications for .nft, .doge, .web3, .dao, .bch, .blockchain, .go, .x, .888 and .coin, .wallet, .coin, and .crypto, along with many of these without the leading dot.

It actually managed to sneak one through the USPTO. It applied for “Defi” for “Domain name registration services” on an intent-to-use basis and didn’t include a leading dot. The USPTO issued a notice of allowance on August 10, giving the company six months to either file a statement of use or ask for an extension.

But the other applications are all meeting a familiar fate. The USPTO doesn’t issue trademarks for marks acting as top level domain names. Unstoppable Domains doesn’t want to be stopped, though. A recent Office Action denying the application for .crypto lays out some of the company’s arguments:

  • It’s not really a domain registry operator as outlined in Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure 1215.02d
  • Because Unstoppable’s blockchain domains provide additional functionality, consumers would view a mark such as .CRYPTO as more than just a top-level domain name
  • Unstoppable’s domains are different from regular domains because they are non-fungible assets (which is true of all domains!)

It has also amended some of its applications to be for “Domain name registration services for Alternative Root Blockchain domains; Registration of Alternative Root Blockchain domain names for identification of users on a global computer network” to specify that these are alternative root domains.

The trademark examiners aren’t buying it.

Unstoppable isn’t the only company giving it a shot.  Chad Folkening’s company IPHQ LLC recently applied for .chain.

The point of applying for these marks is to keep other people from using them, be they other alt-root operators or, eventually, “real” top level domains. If ICANN were to open a new round today, people would certainly apply for .nft, .blockchain, and .crypto. They would sell for lots of money in auctions. Eventually, this means there will be collisions between domains created for blockchains and those in the main root. So the only way I can read these applications is that they are trying to get a leg up in the ICANN process by trademarking the terms or keeping others from creating competing blockchain-based domains. Companies tried this in the 2012 expansion round, and it didn’t work out for them.

CAICT report on the Chinese domain industry

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This report shows what domains are big in China.

Picture of a report pie chart and the words "domain report"

The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) recently released a research report (Chinese language only) on the Chinese domain industry. I just finished reading it and found some bits and pieces that may help you understand the domain market in China.

Published in July this year, the report is called “Internet Domain Name Industry Report (互联网域名产业报告)”. A large part of the report covers general discussions such as DNS and ICANN, but it also contains some data relevant to domain investment.

There are now 43 million domains registered in China. The largest extension is .cn with 20 million domains (47% of total), followed by .com with 12 million domains (29%). The top 10 are .cn, .com, .中国 (IDN China), .icu, .top, .wang, .net, .xyz, .vip, and .club.

You may think Chinese IDN domains must be very popular in China because of its 1.4 billion Chinese-speaking population. Unfortunately, the answer is no. Domains in Chinese IDN extensions account for only about 6% of all domains registered in China. This is because there are still many issues to be tackled, such as user awareness and support by applications.

How does China compare with other countries? The United States has the largest number of domains registered, followed by China, Germany, Tokelau, and Canada. When we look at domains in country extensions only, if the free .tk (Tokelau) domains are excluded, then .cn is the largest country extension in the world.

Finally, the United States has the largest number of domain registrars in the world, followed by Japan, Germany, UK, France, and then China.

 

Donuts completes acquisition of four financial top level domains

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Company completes acquisition of four more top level domains.

Donuts Inc logo on a picture of donuts

Top level domain name company Donuts has acquired four financial-themed top level domain names: markets, .trading, .forex, and .broker.

A source told Kevin Murphy about the acquisition in February, and he wrote about the history of seller Boston Ivy. ICANN recently published the assignment agreements for all four domains showing an effective date of May 7.

Commenting on the transaction, Donuts CMO Mina Neuberg told Domain Name Wire:

Donuts continues to invest in building the TrueName domain portfolio. It is our goal to make sure that registrants can find the most relevant and memorable domain name for their business or project. The addition of top-level domains like: .broker, .forex, .markets, and .trading to our portfolio helps push us closer to achieving this goal.

All four domains have fewer than 2,000 domains in the zone file. Wholesale prices appear to range from about $10 to $40.

The Donuts acquisition might create more visibility for the domains. GoDaddy still doesn’t carry the domains but will likely add them now that they are part of Donuts.

In other Donuts news, the company ranked on this year’s Inc. 5000 list with three-year growth of 93%.

 

 

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