The curious tale of ICANN, Verisign, claims of subterfuge, and the $135m .Web dot-word
Found on Ther Register on Saturday, 08 December 2018
More than two years ago, the internet infrastructure industry was agape when an unknown company paid $135m for the rights to sell .web internet addresses: the sum paid was three times the previous record paid for a new dot-word, and seven times the average auction price for a top-level domain.
Unsurprisingly, the other bidders were furious, and the US government was suspicious too: several months later Verisign's CEO told financial analysts on an earnings conference call that the biz was being investigated by the US Department of Justice over the deal.
It's ridiculous how investors believe that tons of TLD's will work out. The vast majority is only known from scams and malware campaings, so people prefer to stick the classic ones.