Uniregistry and L'Oreal have withdrawn one application each. L'Oreal dropped the .maybelline bid, while Uniregistry will not continue to pursue .marketing.
It is possible that in both cases, the companies are trying to minimize expenses. The .marketing bid was to receive the Initial Evaluation results today, while the .maybelline bid was due next week. In case a company pulls its bid before IE results are published, it is able to claim $130,000 refund from ICANN; after that, it's a fraction of an initial aplication fee of $185,000.
For .marketing, there are two more applicants, Tucows and Donuts, both major players of the newly emerging top-level domain market. This is the first bid retracted by Uniregistry, with 53 more in the company's portfolio.
L'Oreal has withdrawn 4 bids to date including .maybelline, namely .kiehls, .loreal and the company's name in Chinese. The company is still an applicant for 10 more new gTLDs.
