Navigator.com has been acquired by Google. The Whois record for Navigator.com became public for the first time since 2018, and the registrant is now Google LLC. The acquisition was first reported by Jamie Zoch on Sunday morning:
Google LLC acquires ultra premium generic domain name Navigator․com from its past domain owners according to whois records. The domain was under privacy at GoDaddy and has since transferred to corporate registrar MarkMonitor displaying Google. pic.twitter.com/OM7dIkRh7M
— JamiΞ Zoch (@DotWeekly) October 24, 2021
Navigator.com appears to have transferred from GoDaddy to MarkMonitor within the last few days. Prior to the transfer, the domain name was registered under Whois privacy at GoDaddy.
Up until earlier this year, Navigator.com was used by a company called Navigator that provided tools for remote meetings. Crunchbase shows that the company raised $12 million in funding. DNJournal notes that the Navigator.com domain name had sold for $350,000 in 2018. I assume it was this startup that acquired the domain name. There is no sale listing for Navigator.com in NameBio.
Using Archive.org, I am able to see that Navigator shut down in September of this year. It was noted that “What began as a new version of the service has evolved into an entirely new product centered around remote teamwork: Playspace.” Interestingly to some, that new service can be found on Play.Space.
While it is unclear if Google acquired any business assets from Navigator beyond the Navigator.com domain name, the purchase price of the domain name will almost certainly remain private. It remains to be seen what Google will do with Navigator.com.
I don’t know if you saw it, but I took notice of the header on Play.Space. It’s prominently stated, “Playspace is now part of Google Workspace.” Doing a whois on this, it looks like Google took over Playspace, and the Play.Space domain, and at the same time probably backburnered Navigator.
I didn’t even visit Play.space to see. Good catch.
I typically wouldn’t either, it was just interesting to hear that a well-funded company might be using a ngTLD. But, I went incognito just in case. Good reported sale, but I don’t think we’ll ever know the price, and if we do, it will be for the company and not the IP.
Can’t wait for a Google to ditch their IP.
The speculator in me just purchased Navigator.online. It was cheap enough…about the price of a tank of gas and a tuneup.S.W.O.T. made me do it☺ What do you think>
Maybe they’re going to admit they got it wrong with Chrome and bring back Netscape Navigator.
Netscape Navigator browser was the first thing that came to mind when I read about the domain purchase.