On October 22, ICANN held an auction to resolve string contention sets for three new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) strings; .SALON, .SPOT, and .REALTY. According to the corporation’s rules, such an auction is a method of last resort to resolve string contention sets if ICANN receives more than one application for the same gTLD and the applicants for these strings are unable to resolve contention sets among themselves.
As a result, .REALTY was purchased at the maximum price of $5,588,888 by Fegistry, LLC, whose owner, Jay Westerdal, is a major Internet entrepreneur and domain investor.
Donuts subsidiary, Outer Orchard, LLC, prevailed in the auction for .SALON with a winning price of $5,100,575. The third domain string, .SPOT, went to Amazon’s subsidiary, Amazon EU S.à r.l., for $2,200,000.
Thus, the total amount received for the three domains was almost $12.9 million. These proceedings are kept in a special reserve fund until ICANN leaders decide on their appropriate use through consultation with the Internet community.
