A Geographic Fresh TLD heads to the chopping block

.Doha gets nixed, along with two dot-brand top level domains.

A handful of additional top level domain name operators have informed ICANN that they no longer wish to operate their fresh top level domains. But as a first, one of these is an operator of a geographic string.

Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) has filed a termination notice for .Doha. It planned to use this domain name for government entities in Qatar but those plans never materialized.

Additionally, two dot-brand domain owners have asked ICANN to terminate their registry agreements.

First up is The Active Network’s .active. The Active Network is part of Global Payments Inc. (NYSE: GPN). To date, the firm has only used the name for social media short links in the form
of get.active/. You could make the argument that another firm might want .active as a generic TLD.

Zadco Firm, maker of the famed Zippo lighters, also told ICANN it no longer wishes to own .Zippo.