A very interesting event for the domain industry happened yesterday. A new gTLD has been added to DNS root zone. However, not this fact is notable, obviously, but what kind of new gTLD it was. This was the first domain in history that completely matches first and last names of a specific person, who is a Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li.
Li is the chair of the Hong Kong telecommunications corporation PCCW. According to Forbes last year’s data, Li owns $4.7 billion and it number 360 in the list of the richest people on the planet. Pacific Century Asset Management (HK) Limited, a subsidiary of PCCW, is the registry of the domain .RICHARDLI. Domain Incite reports that no names have been registered in .RICHARDLI domain zone so far, however, in the near future at least one obligatory under the contract with ICANN name nic.richardli will appear. Will any other names follow after this one is a big question. Initially the domain was registered for protection because the name Richard Li is a brand in the region. “An important goal of the TLD is the safeguard of the intellectual property right of our Chairman’s name Richard Li”, read the PCCW application for .RICHARDLI domain sent to ICANN in 2012.
