Amazon has revealed on its official website the launch dates for three new generic top-level domains – .FREE, .HOT, and .SPOT. The sunrise period for these domains will begin on April 2, allowing trademark and brand owners the first opportunity to register domain names matching their intellectual property. General registration is expected to start on May 12.
The news can be considered more than just long-awaited: all three domains were delegated back in 2016. In fact, many industry experts regard them as among the most promising of all those delegated during the first phase of the new domains program. Additionally, it’s known that Amazon had to pay substantial sums to other participants in the closed auction, such as Google and Donuts, to secure the right to manage the .FREE domain. However, none of this affected the pace at which these domain zones are being launched.
However, in its coverage of this news, Domain Incite points out that Amazon is generally quite slow when it comes to managing its portfolio of new domains. The company owns 54 domains in total, 10 of which are its own branded domains, while the remaining ones are generic top-level domains. Despite this, Amazon has been notably reluctant to launch most of them. Currently, the most successful domain in Amazon’s portfolio is .BOT, with around 14,000 registrations.
Last year, the company introduced two new domains, .NOW and .DEAL. However, their performance has been far from impressive: currently, .NOW has just under 10,000 registrations, while .DEAL has fewer than 1,000. It remains to be seen whether the three newly announced domains will fare better. The company has yet to disclose the registration costs or any potential restrictions.
