In my morning DomainTools Domain Monitor email, I noticed that the WW.com domain name transferred to a different registrar. WW.com had been registered at GoDaddy, and the domain name was transferred to SafeNames. George Kirikos pointed this out in a tweet this morning:
Here’s another elite 2-letter .com apparent transaction. https://t.co/6XjR2SYM15 has moved from China to a UK-based registrar (@safenames). Due to GDPR, the WHOIS is private. But, we know Safenames is geared to larger brandowners, so it’ll be interesting to see who acquired it.
— George Kirikos (@GeorgeKirikos) July 11, 2018
As George rightly states, because of GDPR, it is currently unclear who the current registrant of WW.com is. A domain transfer doesn’t necessarily mean the domain name sold, but as George also pointed out, Safenames is a pretty big corporate domain name and brand management company, so it could indicate that WW.com was sold. In 2014, I previously reported that WW.com was sold privately.
I did a quick Google search to see some companies with the WW acronym to get an idea of what company may have bought it, assuming the domain name was sold. The first result I saw is Weight Watchers. I am not sure if it is a coincidence or not, but the WeightWatchers.com domain name is also registered at SafeNames, according to Whois records.
If you visit WW.com right now, you can see a SafeNames landing page, so that doesn’t give any information about the current registrant of the domain name.
If WW.com sold, it would almost certainly be a seven figure deal (or perhaps more). Sedo’s Dave Evanson brokered the sale of MM.com for $1.2 million in 2014, and Facebook famously acquired the FB.com domain name for $8.5 million. Repeating two letter .com domain names are in the upper-most echelon of LL .com domain names.
Weight Watchers is a publicly traded company on the NYSE (Symbol: WTW), and the company has a $6.2+ billion market cap. Because Weight Watchers is publicly traded, if the company did buy WW.com, it is possible that the purchase price will be revealed in a SEC filing at some point. I reached out to the VP of Investor Relations and the General Counsel at Weight Watchers via email and phone to ask if the company bought WW.com. I will provide an update if I hear back or learn anything else about WW.com.
I want to reiterate that I do not know if WW.com was sold, nor do I know who acquired WW.com if it did sell. If it did sell and Weight Watchers bought it, that would be a great acquisition for the company.
Update: WW.com is now forwarding to Weight Watchers’ website, so it appears the company did acquire this valuable domain name.
it looks as VVVV.com for me)
Weight watchers is a possible buyer, but since GDPR has taken effect; I use whoxy.com. Based on the current listing information for ww.com; it is owned by a Chinese buyer. Luckily, the registrant’s email is available on Whoxy; so contact them to see who the current owner is:
https://www.whoxy.com/ww.com
That page says it was updated two days ago, and it looks like the transfer happened yesterday. Also, that could be the former registrant rather than the current registrant.
True Elliot. But you can probably get an answer if it was sold or not from the former or current registrant listed at the email listed.
I emailed the registrant to ask.
It would be strange to transfer the domain name AND change the nameservers to a registrar landing page if it did not sell though.
Also, if it sold to a Safenames client, I would imagine a broker/agent was used to buy the domain name, so the former registrant would not know who bought it – again, assuming it sold.
The real buyer will likely be on the contract, they seller should know.
Hopefully you will get a response from the registrant or Weight Watchers. Maybe you’ll learn the sell price? We shall see…
first of all this is an excellent analysis! Just like VI.com ww.com for weight watchers. An acronym. When I read name pros most comments say the ww is too confusing with www. What this shows is exactly how stupid these domineers are. No one made the connection of vi.com or pwc.com.
Being a public company this domain sale will have to be revealed in SEC filings or you could contact george guida.
Looks like Weight Watchers is going to rebrand simply as WW! https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/sep/24/weight-watchers-plans-tech-rebrand-to-take-on-wellness-industry So the purchase makes even more sense now.