Amazon applied for 76 new generic top-level domain names (gTLD’s).
When Amazon applied for their new gTLD’s they applied to operate them on a closed basis meaning the public would not be able to register any domain names without Amazon allocating them, but the Governmental Advisory Council (GAC) to ICANN nixed the plan for the most part, while still allowing .Brand Applications.
Amazon won the rights to some of new gTLD’s it applied for;
In an ICANN Auction of Last Resort, which results are public, Amazon won the auction and paid $4.6 Million for .Buy and $2.2 Million for .Spot.
Amazon has won other private auctions for the new gTLD including .Book and .Free while losing many including .App (Won by Google for $25 Million) and .Cloud and .Game in a private auction.
Amazon still has applications still in contention, most notably for .Music
Amazon applied for some .Brand new gTLD domain extensions as well, most famously Amazon lost its fight to secure the .amazon gTLD and at least for now the application, but they also applied for .Prime and .Kindle which are huge brands for Amazon.
It has been questioned as to what Amazon would be doing with the gTLD extension they do control.
So is Amazon planning on giving each customer a .free domain.
We could logically assume each Prime customer of Amazon, which comes with access Amazon’s streaming service, will wind up with a .Prime domain and an owner of a Kindle might receive or be able to register a .Kindle domain name. Maybe these is why Amazon allowed itself to lose .App?
Well, Amazon has launched AmazonRegistry.com and is going to offer new gTLD domain names to the public according to the website.
The website really doesn’t offer anything just yet, but it’s getting ready to do so and I would expect something up from Amazon pretty quickly.
Stacey King is the Sr. Manager for the new venture for Amazon and overseeing all aspects of the Amazon Registry Services, Inc. business according to her LinkedIn page.
Amazon may have turned on AmazonRegistry.com early because it has a pretty big problem in search engines as results for “amazon registry” are non-existent for domain names due to “wedding registry” and “baby registry” results displayed.
Its use of a .Com at least temporarily for their new Registry will draw fire from the anti-new gTLD crowd for sure.
While Amazon does NOT appear to own the domain name, AmazonDomains.com, Amazon does own the new gTLD Amazon.domains which could be have been the home to what is now AmazonRegistry.com
However Amazon.domains is not even being forwarded to AmazonRegistry.com.
The domain Amazon.domains is not resolving.
well if most accept it – status quo in market share
if it is not embraced and it is interpreted as an inside deal to control customers – then amazon get spanked in share price and revenues.
therefore – I say amazon cant win
A great step in the inevitable popularity of new TLDs. The single largest retailer in the country probably knows a thing or two about business.
“Its use of a .Com at least temporarily for their new Registry will draw fire from the anti-new gTLD crowd for sure.”
Wouldn’t the pro-nTLD crowd find fault with that also?
I dont think it is practicable for Amazon to give out .free to its customers for free, there may be a hidden charge.
Perhaps Amazon will also start selling the .pro TLD
http://whois.domaintools.com/amazon.pro
Keeping my eye on this one for sure.