Brands keep jumping the New gTLD ship : .HTC

ICANN consulted with HTC Corporation to assess whether to transition operation of the .htc top-level domain (TLD) to a successor Registry Operator. Subject to an on-going evaluation, ICANN has made a preliminary determination that operation of the .htc TLD need not be transitioned to a successor Registry Operator.

• Transitioning operation of the TLD is not necessary to protect the public interest.
• HTC Corporation, in its function as the Registry Operator has represented to ICANN that it does not sell, distribute or transfer control or use of any registrations in the .htc TLD to third parties.
• .htc qualifies as a .Brand TLD.
• Only one domain name is registered in the .htc TLD and it is mandated by the Registry Agreement (nic.htc).

This termination of registry agreement comes less than a month after the McDonald’s Corporation asked ICANN to terminate the .mcdonalds and .mcd registries by November 2nd 2017.

There have been several other .brand domain name extensions that have been abandoned since the New gTLD program began in late 2013 or early 2014. Here are a few:

• .montblanc (Richemont DNS Inc.)
• .chloe (Richemont DNS Inc.)
• .boots (The Boots Company PLC)
• .theguardian (Guardian News And Media Limited)
• .dwg (Autodesk, Inc.)