Amazon tops the list, gaming, and top registrars: Digging in on Donuts’ Sunrise
Here’s a look at the top registrants and registrars, plus details on possible gaming and EAP day one registrations.
Last night I published initial data regarding Donuts’ sunrise period on its first seven domain names. This was based on names in the zone files that were published last night.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the number of names in the zone file ought to be considered the lower bound of names that were actually registered in sunrise. I’ve by now discovered more names, such as Wordpress.guru (which doesn’t have nameservers). It also doesn’t account for firms that blocked their mark across all of Donuts’ domains with the domain blocking service.
I spent much of this morning pulling records on all of the domains to better analyze the data. Here are some observations.
Amazon registered the most domains.
I’ve argued ahead of that Amazon’s applications for closed TLDs may just be a defensive play. I’ve observed the number of domains it registers for each product and brand launch and it’s staggering.
Likewise, it was the number one registrant in Donuts’ sunrise. Here’s how many domains I counted from Amazon and other firms, as well as some insight.
1. Amazon.com 71 – they covered the gamut of brands, counting AWS, Fire, Woot, Prime, Audible, etc. They also registered some one-off brands in .clothing.
2. Johnson & Johnson 42 – domains were in .holdings and .ventures.
3. Ameritrade 34 – mostly .guru, .ventures, and .holdings.
4. ZEG Zweirad-Einkaufs-Genossenschaft eG 26 – the firm registered many brands under .bike.
5. Yahoo! 23 – I’m not sure why it chose to register domains like flickr.plumbing and tumblr.bike rather than blocking them.
6. Barzano-Zanardo 22 – mostly .clothing and .bike.
7. Fruit of the Loom 21 – all .clothing.
8. Buckle Brands 20 – all .clothing.
8. Yodobashi Camera
10. Michelin – mostly .bike and .clothing.
The brand protection registrars registered the most.
This shouldn’t come as much surprise, but now I also understand why many mainstream registrars aren’t bothering with sunrise. Here were the top five registrars based on domains in the zone file:
Mark Monitor 215
CSC 192
Com Laude 154
Ascio 99
Key-Systems 78
As for GoDaddy, the biggest registrar in the world? Just 39.
Donuts got gamed.
I wrote last night regarding how it appeared that a few people gamed the system with some questionable Swiss trademarks.
Now I know the extent of this.
.Luxury’s backer, What Box? Holdings, and attorney Thomas Brackey, which all share the same mailing address, walked away with 32 domains.
What Box was by far the biggest, getting 16 domains counting the terms 808, finance, wedding, christmas, realestate, bet, holiday, money, ilove, and travel. Thomas Brackey registered 10 domains with direct and cloud. .Luxury stuck to luxury domains with six domains starting with lux and luxury.
It’s possible some of these will be challenged under section 4.1.e of Donuts’ sunrise dispute policy.
Some people actually bought domains for over $10,000.
Finally, some following-sunrise data. The zone file also includes six domains that were registered on 1/29, and appear to be registered under day 1 of the Early Access Program. That means these firms likely paid over $10,000 for the domains!
update: it appear gmo, deuter, and Promod may have been sunrise registrations.
Here are the six:
1. gmo.ventures (registered by the internet firm)
2. Deuter.bike (deuter sport gmbh)
3. Soccer.guru (Avanti Sports)
4. Promod.clothing (Promod in France)
5. Pacific.ventures (under privacy)
6. Sloan.plumbing (Sloan Global Holdings)
I’m surprised that Sloan hasn’t registered “sloan” with the Trademark Clearinghouse. I checked and it hasn’t. That would have been a lot cheaper.
It’s possible there are more day one EAP registrations that aren’t in the zone file yet.
