Machines nets $8.4 million from auctions, .Cloud and .Book settled — Minds +

Firm wins by losing five auctions.

Fresh top level domain name firm Minds + Machines has bolstered its bank account by $8.4 million as a result of losing five private auctions for fresh top level domain names. The losses included a handful of highly contested strings, such as .cloud and .book.

That’s not bad for a firm that originally stated it wouldn’t even participate in private auctions.

The firm lost auctions for:

• .book – 9 applicants were in this contention set, counting Amazon and Google. Only Amazon and R.R. Bowker LLC haven’t withdrawn their applications; my money is on Amazon.com.
• .cloud- There were 7 applicants, and the winner was ARUBA S.p.A., beating the likes of Google and Amazon
• .dog – Donuts won this three way race with Google and Minds + Machines
• .site- Radix won the five-way contention set
• .style – Donuts won the five-way race