.XYZ announced the launch of the sunrise periods in its gTLDs .SKIN, .HAIR, .MAKEUP and .BEAUTY on December 1. These beauty-themed gTLDs were initially delegated to the French company L’Oreal. The cosmetics giant planned to operate them as closed top-level domains for its own purposes, but it was prohibited from doing so by ICANN since these domains are generally-used words.
L’Oreal could not put the domain zones to any use and sold the rights to manage them to .XYZ at the beginning of this year (the amount was not disclosed). During the sunrise period, owners of protected trademarks and brands can register dot-brand domains. This period will last until February 10 and will be followed by an early access period when the most promising domains can be registered at significantly higher prices. And, finally, general registration will launch on March 2.
It is noteworthy that the general registration prices announced by the registry do not look terrible, at least compared with L’Oreal’s previous plans. According to Domain Incite, the company set the general availability prices at $5,500 in an attempt to get around ICANN’s ban. However, these plans never materialized because the domains never really launched. .XYZ will price all four beauty-themed domains around the $20 mark.
