It’s Auction Time Again

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It’s Auction Time Again

	By John Levine Author, Consultant & Speaker
	July 25, 2016 Views: 6,568 Add Comment

This week ICANN will auction off .WEB or .WEBS. There are seven live applications for .WEB and one for .WEBS.

The string contention process decided that the two names are so similar that they’ll only assign one of them, so all eight applications are in one auction. (The same string contention process decided that .ACCOUNTANT and .ACCOUNTANTS are both allowed, as are .AUTO and .AUTOS and .BM and .BMS and .COUPON and .COUPONS and .FAN and .FANS and .GIFT and .GIFTS and .LOAN and .LOANS and .ML and .MLS and .NEW and .NEWS and .REVIEW and .REVIEWS and .SA and .SAS and .SB and .SBS and .TV and .TVS and .WATCH and .WATCHES and .WORK and .WORKS, but I guess the Web is special.)

There are some deep pocketed bidders in this round including Google, Donuts, web.com which owns Network Solutions and a lot of other web properties, and Schlund which owns the largest web hoster 1&1. Google paid $25 million for .APP and GMO paid $41 million for .SHOP. It’s hard to see how .WEB would be worth less than either of those unless bidder fatigue sets in.

So stay tuned and we’ll shortly know how much more will be added to the $104 million already in the Giant Pile of Auction Money.

By John Levine, Author, Consultant & Speaker

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