$10k a Year .Brand Domain Names — Neustar Offers

A dormant .brand domain for $10,000 a year (plus ICANN fees).

Domain name registry Neustar has created a fresh package for firms wishing to get their own .brand top level domain names.

Called the “Brand Assurance Package” (pdf), it’s a bare bones solution that seems to be geared to firms that may want to get a .brand but have no idea if they’ll ever do anything with it.

For $10,000 a year, Neustar guarantees firms will “meet ICANN specifications for your brand gTLD”.

That basically means they’ll help you with the initial application and make sure you meet ICANN’s ongoing technical compliance hurdles such as having an operating whois.

Of course this doesn’t include ICANN’s fees counting the $185,000 application fee and ongoing annual fees. If the brand actually wants to use the domain name it can upgrade its package with Neustar.

This seems like a smart marketing move to get .brand domain names locked in and then upgrade them later.