The new generic top-level domain .WATCHES has changed owners. According to reports by ICANN, at the end of last December, the Swiss Richemont, which owned the domain, sold the rights to manage it to Afilias. At the same time, literally the next day, Afilias sold its domain assets to Donuts, which is, therefore, the current registry of .WATCHES, reports Domain Incite.
Richemont produces luxury goods and is known primarily for luxury watch and jewelry brands, such as Cartier, Piaget, etc. The company showed a very strong interest in the new generic top-level domains program at its inception. Richemont applied for a total of 14 domains, and company representatives regularly attended various domain conferences, rare for a "non-core" business. The company also actively experimented with registering domains in internationalized domain zones. But in recent years, Richemont has apparently lost interest in domains: .WATCHES was the last domain left under the holding.
