NCC Group, which offers source code verification, escrow and other data storage to licensors and licensees worldwide, announced that it has bought the rights to .trust from Deutsche Post.
Deutsche Post, which as the owner of DHL is the world’s largest courier service, initially planned to use the domain for supporting DHL. It hoped that the domain name would be associated with DHL, which has proved a reliable service. However, Deutsche Post ultimately chose not to utilize the domain, possibly because NCC has offered a good price for it. The price tag of the deal was not disclosed.
For its part, NCC likes the .trust bid because it is uncontested. NCC’s internet security subsidiary Artemis previously filed a bid for the .secure gTLD, but it is facing competition from the much richer Amazon. It hoped that Amazon’s bid would be rejected due to the controversy over “closed generics,” but its hopes were dashed when Amazon, pushed by the public and ICANN, was allowed to change its application.
Observers believe that NCC considers .trust as an “additional” security TLD, because having the rights to a couple of internet security domains is a piece of luck for a company working in this sphere. There is a chance, though, that the .secure gTLD will be assigned to Amazon, and NCC will have to do with only one secure domain.
