The ICM registry, which is the operator of .XXX, announced a short time ago that their two new extensions .porn and .adult each got around 4,000 registrations in the Sunrise Period which was opened to trademark holders.
The wholesale cost for each sunrise registration was just $62, which is quite a bargain considering that the wholesale cost of a .sucks registration is around $2K + for any domain they deemed as “premium” going up to $185K wholesale for a domain like ICANN.sucks
Stuart Lawley the CEO of the ICM registry told TheDomains.com that the average Sunrise registration was for 2.5 years meaning that those 8,000 registrations turned into 20,000 registrations in domain years, meaning that the ICM registry just rake in over $1.2 Million on Sunrise alone.
No other company applied for .Porn or for .Adult so ICM got each extension for the application fee of $185,000 each.
So ICM spent $370K for the two applications and has already banked over $1.2 Million in just Sunrise.
Unlike .sucks, ICM charged all Sunrise registrants for .porn and .adult the same $62 making the .XXX, .Porn and .Adult guy look like the white knight compared to the dark knight of .sucks.
Lets not forget that ICM still has .Sex forthcoming (which did have 1 other application) which should get as many Sunrise registrations as .porn and .adult and may get as many as those two combined.
Congrats
I hope you dont mind me asking a question . I have seen all these much more than $10 prices being charged by Registries and I am just trying to get my head around HOW this sits with the many decisions in .com UDRP’s that have chastised and ruled against Respondents who have tried charging complainants more than a reg fee type price and gone on to use that against the Respondent in their decisions ? Surely if a Registry can charge tens of thousands to a Registrant for “a” domain name (WITH ICANN’s blessing & encouragement) THEN it cannot be unfair for a Respondent to have offered a .com for sale for similar amounts ?.
I like your thinking!
Asking price to an incoming offer should not be used against registrant to show bad-faith. Only if registrant targeted company should it be bad-faith.
It’s all about eXXXtortion. Targeting mainstream, where the money is. They’re not new at the game but I’d be surprised if those figures were anywhere near accurate. They lied before. Several times.
https://amanda36c.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/icm-registry-liars-dot-xxx/
https://amanda36c.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/icm-registry-stallers-dot-xxx/
https://amanda36c.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/domains-for-squat-by-icm-registrywebpowers-lawyers/
https://amanda36c.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/whats-taking-icm-registry-so-long-to-finalize-this-performers-program/
https://amanda36c.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/icm-registry-thegrandillusion-xxx/
https://amanda36c.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/february-3rd-xxx-tortion-day/