Last week the world press actively discussed the prospects of a new car manufactured by Apple and almost started counting days before the premiere. The reason was that the company has registered three names in the new automotive domains at the same time - Apple.car, Apple.cars and Apple.auto. DomainNameWire quite sarcastically comments on the media turmoil and urges journalists to stop “reading domain grounds”. Obviously, the fact that Apple is interested in automotive market is known. However, just the registration of the domain name doesn’t tell anything about the corporation’s intentions.
DomainNameWire reminds that many large companies and brands have a policy of defensive registrations. They register their names in the new gTLDs so that nobody else can do it. Thus, simultaneously with automotive domains Apple has registered names in .FOREX, .CRICKET and .DATING. However, it hardly means that the manufacturer of iPhone is willing to own a cricket team, a dating service or play on exchange rates. We can recall more curious cases as well. For example, during the Sunrise Period in .SEX domain a famous toys manufacturer Lego registered its name in it. It’s hard to believe that behind this step is the desire of the company to shift its production from constructors to sex related items.
