When there are words "art" and "auction" the names Sotheby's and Christie's are certainly to come into mind. However in this case it is not about them at all, and about the ICANN auction planned on July 29. Fate of the perspective new .ART domain, which was claimed by 10 companies at once, had to be decided at this event.
But, from all appearances, auction will not take place. 5 applicants for the new gTLD withdrew their applications as good friends. Among them there are such large domain portfolio holders as Uniregistry and Minds + Machines, as well as Aremi Group S.A., Top Level Design LLC and EFLUX.ART, LLC. Speaking more exactly, auction is probably to have been held. But it was private applicants’ auction following the results of which losers receive a refund from the winner – unlike the ICANN auction where losers just say goodbye to all finances committed in registration and promotion of their applications.
Such functions are private as much as possible, and no information about their progress and results can be received, as a rule. At the moment there are 5 companies in the list of .ART domain applicants – Donuts, ART REGISTRY INC., UK Creative Ideas Limited, Merchant Law Group LLP, and Dadotart, Inc. Four of them must have failed to have time to withdraw their applications following the results of ended applicants’ auction. And the administration right holder’s name of so demanded (at least, for representatives of domain business) gTLD can be known already today or tomorrow.
