MMX, previously known as Minds + Machines, announced that it will pay its partner $5.1 million to renegotiate the terms of managing the new .LONDON gTLD. While the name of the partner was not specified, Domain Incite believes that it is London & Partners (L&P), the marketing arm of the London Mayor’s office. Interestingly, the deal between MMX and L&P was concluded during the mayoral reign of Boris Johnson, who is now the UK prime minister.
While the terms of the deal were not made public, it was expected that MMX would make annual guaranteed payments to L&P for managing the .LONDON domain, and the amounts in question were considerable. The registry hoped that the proceeds from domain sales would more than cover these payments, but that never happened. In fact, it is now clear that .LONDON became one of the biggest failures among all gTLDs, at least compared to the initial expectations. Registrations peaked out at 86,000 in March 2018, and just one year later were down to 54,000.
It is obvious that against this backdrop the L&P contract became a major burden for the registry, generating huge losses. The company then decided to pay $5 million in order to secure a release from its obligations regarding the failed domain.
