back to article Google sells .car, walks away from generic domain names

Google has sold its rights to all internet addresses ending in ".car" to a joint partnership of two other registry operators. The deal, for an undisclosed sum, confirms what many in the industry have suspected for some time: that the search giant is concentrating on its brand names and is offloading generic names, despite …

  1. veti Silver badge

    So ".ogle" is still up for grabs then? Ooh, possibilities. An entire .tld dedicated to voyeurism and trolling Google. What could be better?

    I wonder if anyone has dibs on "rusty.cars", "old.cars", "crappy.cars"...?

    1. T. F. M. Reader

      My first urge was cattle.prod, actually...

  2. Sebastian A

    I don't get it.

    Other than registrars, I don't see who benefits from this TLD proliferation. It's going to mean businesses need to defensively register hundreds or thousands of domains, and it means customers have even less chance of picking the "right" domain.

    I guess search engines would benefit from the increased traffic and hence eyeballs for ad impressions.

    More draws do not a better filing cabinet make.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: I don't get it.

      We can assume that Google has profited from the experience: financially by being able to find the market price (the initial auction was really only a beauty contest) for generics. But they presumably also gathered information about the kind of market there will be for these kind of domains and decided it wasn't worth committing resources to.

    2. User McUser
      Mushroom

      Re: I don't get it.

      I don't see who benefits from this TLD proliferation.

      Well, ICANN!

  3. No. Really!?

    1990s

    It feels like gTLD is the new version of the 90s domain name land rush. Register on an impulse first, ask questions about the usefulness later - .phd was contested? Seriously?

    1. Trigonoceps occipitalis

      .phd was contested?

      Is "DPhil" still available?

    2. dotdavid

      Re: 1990s

      .phd was contested?

      .phD? Crap, we thought we were bidding on .phP :-(

  4. berkens

    We told you Google lost interest in the generic new gTLD"s on thedomains.com back in February

    http://www.thedomains.com/2015/02/17/how-committed-is-google-to-the-new-gtld-program-applied-for-101-now-lost-29-out-of-34-auctions/

  5. Craiger

    Strange Google would give up .car with all that driverless car business while at the same time paying $25 million for the equally generic but less permanent .app: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/27/google_wins_most_popular_new_internet_extension_for_25m/

    Seems like the might have wanted to keep that one.

    1. BobRocket

      I can see why they dropped '.car',

      'Ford' doesn't need '.car' but 'Grindr' needs '.app'.

      '.tractor' is required because not many people associate tractors with 'Lamborghini' or 'Ford'

      1. graeme leggett Silver badge

        Those who buy tractors do associate those words with agricultural machinery. For them Allis-Chalmers.com or Massey-Ferguson.co.uk would suffice.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "•Domains we think have interesting and creative potential, such as .lol"

    Oh my effing god.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      I suspect that was very tongue-in-cheek. How about "we can get those with spare change and see if a market develops". Remember, it's always the first million that's hardest to get.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And how long

    before most of these these domains become nothing more than dumping grounds for spammers, malware hosting and other useless crap? I've already blocked all email from .ninja as it was nothing but spam. Many more new domains to add to that list shortly I suspect.

  8. HofmanLaursen

    "Oh, how I laughed thinking back at the year 2015, when we still only used .com domains".

    Google didn't lose interest in the new gTLDs, they just decided to focus on the important ones. Splashing out USD 25.000.000 for .app proves this. They will still be one of the drivers of changing our user habits.

  9. Version 1.0 Silver badge
    Happy

    I love these new TLDs

    It make it so easy to block them at the mail server - all I have to do is blacklist *.gop, *.review etc. and the server rejects everything. Lovely.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lots of crap TLDs are in Google's best interest

    Strategy-- Buy a bunch of somewhat interesting TLDs with pocket change. A few months later, give them away with some blather about 'refocusing priorities' or such rot. Now the eyeballs can't just slap .com or .co.uk on to a name, they have to search for everything. Profit!

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