MMX has announced the launch of a new generic TLD .FORUM. According to a posting on the company's website, the sunrise period will run from November 16 until December 16. Public registration will not begin until March 2, 2021, although the exact date has not been announced yet.
The situation looks somewhat paradoxical. According to ICANN’s documents, .FORUM is still run by Fegistry, LLC, which is owned by well-known domain investor Jay Westerdal. However, following the decision made by the authorities of the state of Washington, the company was liquidated this year for not filing a tax report. The nic.forum also redirects now to a page created by MMX. Domain Name Wire contacted MMX and Jay Westerdal for comment. The latter did not respond, and MMX representatives said that at the moment the company is acting as the technical operator of the .FORUM domain, but plans to become its registry next year.
Also noteworthy are the announced prices in .FORUM. The annual domain name registration will cost $1,000 – and this is the wholesale price for registrars. But, perhaps, such a policy makes sense due to the specifics of internet forums. These platforms have lost a lot of their popularity since the launch of ICANN's New gTLD Program. At the same time, the largest and most famous forums still attract a huge number of users. So their registrants could spend $1,000 on a domain that will allow the registry to stay in the black even with a small number of registered names.
