New gTLD

Earlier this morning, Donuts reported that it sold the Home.Loans new gTLD domain name for $500,000. Whenever I read about large deals involving the new gTLD domain names, I know that some people will ask questions about whether or not they are legitimate. Some new gTLD domain registries offer creative deals to ensure the best domain names are developed and supported, so a deal may not be entirely what it seems.

I reached out to Matt Overman, Senior Vice president of Sales at Donuts, to ask him about the deal to confirm there were no marketing gimmicks and it was an all-cash (paid at once) deal. Matt confirmed that “it was an all cash deal paid up front without any marketing kickbacks or anything like that.”

Using the Whois History tool at DomainTools, I noticed that the domain name was first created at the end of August of 2017 and transferred to the buyer in November. Matt confirmed this and told me Donuts and the owner agreed to wait to report the news until

In advance of NamesCon, Andrew Merriam, Director of Business Development at the company that operates the .Design registry (Top Level Design), shared his company’s 2017 Brand Report (pdf file) pertaining to .Design domain names. The report sheds some light on the usage of .Design domain names by some major companies in various business sectors and industries.

Highlighted in the brand report are the following domain names operated by major brands we all know and use:

• Facebook.Design
• NPR.Design
• Kohler.Design
• AirBNB.Design
• Uber.Design
• Booking.Design

I checked all of the links above, and these companies are actually using their .Design domain names for websites rather than simply forwarding the domain names to other websites. Many registries tout