Last week Amazon withdrew its bid for managing the new gTLD .KIDS. The domain now has only one applicant, DotKids Foundation, a nonprofit organization. This means .KIDS will eventually be delegated to DotKids, which is surprising considering that DotKids had been competing with the world’s two wealthiest companies, Amazon and Google. In fact, Google applied for .KID but ICANN found the two domain names confusingly similar. As a result, ICANN decided to launch one auction for both names and let the winner choose.
However, the auction never happened. Google dropped out of the competition in October 2018 and now Amazon has done the same. It is unlikely that the domains were sold in private bidding or that the competitors received financial compensation for withdrawing from the fight. The financial capabilities of Google and Amazon are massively greater than the resources of Hong Kong-based DotKids Foundation. The only guess is that the non-profit wore out the two internet giants. Over the five years that it took to determine the fate of .KIDS, DotKids Foundation filed at least four complaints and demanded that ICANN reconsider its decision to put the domain up for auction. The company invented mind-boggling excuses until finally last September the organization asked ICANN for funding to take part in the auction. It goes without saying that the request was denied but, oddly, the tactic itself proved successful. Perhaps at some point Google and Amazon simply decided it was pointless to continue a battle that could have dragged on for months and maybe even years.
Nevertheless, Domain Incite, which reported the news, questions the domain’s glittering future under the DotKids Foundation. In its application, the nonprofit claims that it will do everything it can to promote the creation and publication of content for children in .KIDS. The organization also promises to observe the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child that defines children as “every human being below the age of eighteen years.” But obviously content for 5-year-olds and 17-year-old teenagers is different. So the domain zone is not expected to become any more popular until DotKids Foundation outlines its criteria for registrants more specifically. At any rate, with all the ICANN formalities and technical tests, registration in .KIDS is not likely to begin for another year.
