The internet could soon gets just its fourth active single-character .com domain name, after Verisign revealed plans to auction off o.com for charity.
The company has asked ICANN to allow it to release just one of the 23 remaining one-letter .com domains, which are currently reserved under the terms of the .com registry agreement.
It’s basically a proof of concept that would lead to this contractual restriction being lifted entirely.
O.com has been picked as the guinea pig, because of “long-standing interest” in the domain, according to Verisign.
Overstock.com, the $1.8 billion-a-year US retailer, is known to have huge interest in the name.
The company acquired o.co from .CO Internet for $350,000 during the ccTLD’s 2010 relaunch, then embarked upon a disastrous rebranding campaign that ended when the company estimated it was losing 61% of its type-in traffic to o.com.
Overstock has obsessed over its unobtainable prize for over a decade and would almost certainly be involved in any auction for the domain.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that Overstock pressured Verisign into requesting the release of o.com.
Despite the seven or eight figures that a single-letter .com domain could fetch, Verisign’s cut of the auction proceeds would be just $7.85, its base registry fee.
Regardless, it has a payment schedule in mind that would see the winning bidder continue to pay premium renewal fees for 25 years, eventually doubling the sale price.
The winner would pay their winning bid immediately and get a five-year registration, but then would have to pay 5% of that bid to renew the domain for years six through 25.
In other words, if the winning bid was $1 million, the annual renewal fee after the first five years would be $50,000 and the total amount paid would eventually be $2 million.
Source
The company has asked ICANN to allow it to release just one of the 23 remaining one-letter .com domains, which are currently reserved under the terms of the .com registry agreement.
It’s basically a proof of concept that would lead to this contractual restriction being lifted entirely.
O.com has been picked as the guinea pig, because of “long-standing interest” in the domain, according to Verisign.
Overstock.com, the $1.8 billion-a-year US retailer, is known to have huge interest in the name.
The company acquired o.co from .CO Internet for $350,000 during the ccTLD’s 2010 relaunch, then embarked upon a disastrous rebranding campaign that ended when the company estimated it was losing 61% of its type-in traffic to o.com.
Overstock has obsessed over its unobtainable prize for over a decade and would almost certainly be involved in any auction for the domain.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that Overstock pressured Verisign into requesting the release of o.com.
Despite the seven or eight figures that a single-letter .com domain could fetch, Verisign’s cut of the auction proceeds would be just $7.85, its base registry fee.
Regardless, it has a payment schedule in mind that would see the winning bidder continue to pay premium renewal fees for 25 years, eventually doubling the sale price.
The winner would pay their winning bid immediately and get a five-year registration, but then would have to pay 5% of that bid to renew the domain for years six through 25.
In other words, if the winning bid was $1 million, the annual renewal fee after the first five years would be $50,000 and the total amount paid would eventually be $2 million.
Source
