British publishing house Guardian News and Media sold rights to the new generic top-level domain .OBSERVER, Domain Incite reports. Initially the domain was registered as a dot-brand, closed for outside registrations and designed only for resources related to the online version of The Observer – popular and one of the oldest British newspapers, published on Sundays. However, plans of the publishers obviously changed.
Registry Top Level Spectrum (TLS) bought the domain; it already owns several new names, including .FEEDBACK и .FORUM. TLS CEO Jay Westerdal refused to reveal the exact price, he only pointed out that it was “a sub-$1 million deal”. He announced that the company is willing to change registration agreement and make .OBSERVER an unrestricted generic accessible for everyone. Therefore, in not yet long history of the new generic top-level domains there is another precedent: .OBSERVER will become the first dot-brand that loses its status. At the moment the domain is going though a phase of pre-delegation testing, exact date of its launch is not known yet.
