According to Domain Incite, numerous registries behind so-called dot-brands have renewed their contracts with ICANN in the last month alone. The gTLDs in question include .delta, .cipriani, .gallup, .icbc, .frontier, .alibaba, .taobao and a number of others. The companies that own them have renewed their Registry Agreements for a second ten-year period, despite having never actually used them since they were delegated.
Out of a total of 369 dot-brand gTLDs in the DNS root zone, 116 have only ever registered their obligatory nic.[brand] domain, Domain Incite reports. However, the number of such unused domains far exceeds the number of companies that decided to voluntarily terminate their contracts.
Given that the minimum fee a registry has to pay ICANN is $25,000 a year, rising to $25,800 on January 1, a simple calculation suggests that ICANN is making about $3 million per year, or about 2% of its revenue, from delegating dormant domains.
That said, while ICANN’s policies and motives are perfectly clear, one cannot help wondering why large companies would waste money, from year to year, on something they never even use. We could certainly assume that they are still perfecting some strategic plans for the use of their dot-brands, as corporate processes in large companies are rarely fast. However, common defensive registrations make more sense. In the same way, companies register names similar to their brands across multiple TLDs before someone else does. Why not register their dot-brand gTLDs, if they can afford it?
