ICANN releases official statement on the $135 million .web auction. I have to give credit to Michael Berkens, he told me months ago he thought it would be $100 million plus.
On 27 July 2016, Power Auctions LLC, ICANN‘s authorized auction service provider, conducted a New Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Program auction to resolve contention for .WEB and .WEBS. Auction serves as the method of last resort for determining which applicant may operate a gTLD when several entities have applied for the same or confusingly similar gTLDs. This method was defined through ICANN‘s bottom-up, multistakeholder process.
Eight applicants completed the requirements for participating in the .WEB/.WEBS auction. NU DOT CO LLC prevailed in the auction for the price of $135 million to operate the .WEB gTLD, and Vistaprint Ltd prevailed with a price of $1 for the .WEBS gTLD.
