Companies giving up dot-brands that were delegated to them are not uncommon these days. The most recent incident would hardly have aroused any interest if it were not so ridiculous and illogical. The Indian company Shriram Capital, the financial arm of the large conglomerate Shriram Group, notified ICANN it wanted to terminate its contract. The company announced it was terminating the registry agreement for the .shriram domain effective March 31.
First, it is ridiculous because the letter was sent in May – a month and a half after the company stopped managing the domain. Second, because registries don’t actually need to cite an excuse to terminate their contracts. For some reason, Shriram Capital thought it should note that it was giving up domain management due to the economic difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. And this reason actually made the whole situation comical: Shriram Group reported revenue of over $11 billion in 2017, and it is extremely difficult to believe that the pandemic has undermined the company’s position so much that its contribution to ICANN has become an unbearable burden. One way or another, .shriram is the 79th dot-brand that the owners no longer want. Domain Incite writes in this regard that ICANN expects to lose 62 gTLDs in this fiscal year (which started three weeks ago in the US).
