Last week Donuts noticeably expanded its domain portfolio. The registry received rights to administer five more gTLDs: .CHAT, .STYLE, .TENNIS, .BINGO and .WINE. Their fate was apparently determined during private auctions of applicants: details haven’t been disclosed yet, however, all of the companies that competed with Donuts have already withdrawn their applications.
Domain .WINE perhaps deserves special attention. It was the reason of a tough confrontation inside ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee, and also between management of the corporation and authorities of several countries with rich winemaking traditions. As it was reported earlier, French and Spanish governments for example required protection of geographical indicators in domains .WINE and .VIN, so that such domain names like Bordeaux.vin or Rioja.wine were available only for winemakers of corresponding regions. Mechanism of protections hasn’t been adopted on ICANN level, however, ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade in the recent letter to the French government indicated that required measures would be provided on the registry level. Now it is obvious that the right to administer the domain got Donuts. It has won .WINE and was the only application for .VIN.
