Zoom, the popular video conferencing company, filed its S-1 paperwork for an IPO, according to this tweet from CNBC this afternoon:
Video-conferencing company Zoom files for IPO with over $300 million in sales and even a profit https://t.co/CVCzxGdHK9
— CNBC (@CNBC) March 22, 2019
Zoom has used the Zoom.US domain names for its website, and it is one of the few major companies I can think of that uses the .US ccTLD. As reported in December of 2018, Zoom privately acquired the Zoom.com domain name via Media Options late last year for an undisclosed amount of money.
With its recent Zoom.com domain name acquisition in mind, I quickly glanced at the company’s S-1 filing to see if it mentioned the domain name acquisition and purchase price. Unfortunately, there was nothing mentioned about how much Zoom paid to buy Zoom.com. I may be reading into it more than I should, but I think the company may have hinted that it will be using Zoom.com as its primary url at some point in the near future.
A search of the S-1 for “Zoom.com” yields three references:
“Our website address is https://zoom.com.”
“Upon the completion of this offering, our code of business conduct and ethics will be available under the Corporate Governance section of our website at https://zoom.com. “
“We also maintain a website at https://zoom.com, at which, following the completion of this offering, you may access these materials free of charge as soon as reasonably practicable after they are electronically filed with, or furnished to, the SEC. Information contained on or accessible through our website is not a part of this prospectus, and the inclusion of our website address in this prospectus is an inactive textual reference only.”
Perhaps tellingly, there was not a single reference to the Zoom.US url that is currently home to the Zoom website. As has been the case since the acquisition, Zoom.com continues to forward to Zoom.US.
It is quite possible the company mentioned Zoom.com and not Zoom.US in the S-1 filing because it could be easier for someone to understand .com rather than the .US ccTLD. If I were to guess though, I would imagine the company is going to shift to the Zoom.com domain name at some point in the future. We shall see.
Anything less than $5 million for Zoom.com was a bargain price. It’s a low-to-mid eight figure domain sale to the right end-user IMO.
The American public still does not even know .US exists. It could have been the opposite from day 1 and every day since till now without even costing a penny, however. Nonetheless things are changing a bit despite the shackles.
On that note, see:
Mastercard.us
HaagenDazs.us
CalvinKlein.us
Represent.us
The answer has always been easier and immeasurably less hidden than what Dorothy learned at the end of the film.
.us is a terrible extension, if those companies are genuinely using those .us names then I’d say it is only a matter of time before they change as well.
IMO 1.5m is a fair & equitable price