In a blog post on casinoaffiliateprograms.com, taking about the new gTLD .Poker new gTLD applicants are being referred to as Domain Squatters and says that Donuts Binky Mill LLC has dropped its application for .Poker
“The way new domains are handled is a bit complex. When new domains are announced, companies bid for the rights to “hold” the domains. This means that the company that purchases the gTLD .poker will have final control over who can purchase a domain that ends in .poker. A company could choose to hold the domain strictly for its own use, or it could choose to sell individual domains with the .poker prefix—ie ABCCompany.poker.”
“In 2012 there were four companies vying for rights to hold the .poker domain. These companies are Afilias Domains, Binky Mill LLC, dot Poker Limited and Dot Poker LLC.
“By doing some research into these names, including a whois lookup, experts believe that these are all large domain firms that control thousands of domains, and are now snapping up these gTLD as they become available. Commonly referred to as “domain squatters,” these companies hold domains and sell them to small businesses at a higher price than the standard domain registration cost.?
As of mid to late 2013, nothing has been officially decided about the future of the .poker domain.
“Current reports is that Binky Mill LLC has dropped out of the running, leaving three current contenders for this desired name.”
“Information provided by independent domain name information firms show a 2015 launch for the .poker domain, so likely we will find out something in the coming months.
Its interesting when non-domain publications chat about new gTLD’s.
So this publication seems to thing the applicants for .Poker are Domain Squatters and seems to infer that a lot of the domains that could be available under a .Poker new gTLD are already taken as well.
Moreover I’m not sure where the publication is getting their “current reports” but Binky Mill LLC which is a Donuts company, has not withdrawn their application according to the ICANN site.
According to ICANN’s site, the four applicants for .Poker are Donuts, Afilias, Famous Four and Dot Poker LLC whose contact is listed as Mr. Reeve Collins.
Donuts Inc. says
Donuts has not withdrawn its application for .POKER and does not intend to withdraw. This report, whatever the source, is entirely wrong.
Michael Berkens says
The source is linked to in the post above ^^