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View Full Version : Single letter .com's.


ScottD
02-20-2002, 01:34 AM
How did Qwest get Q.COM, is it because their NYSE symbol is Q? How did Paypal get X.COM? I know Paypal merged with X.COM, but how did they get X.COM do begin with? Those are the only two registered single letter .COM's.

Any ideas?

<edit>I found this while searching google:
Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to your
inquiry regarding "d.com".

The IANA obtained the registration for d.com and most other
single-character names under .com in 1993 (the prior reference
to 1992 was in error) to implement its policy designed to
enhance the extensibilty of the domain-name space. Since
then, these names have been continuously under registration
by the IANA. The IANA has received many inquiries from people
seeking to register these names. As required by the existing
policy, the IANA advises those inquiring that these names are
already registered to the IANA and reserved for infrastructure
purposes to help ensure stable operation of the Internet.
The IANA has uniformly turned down all offers by third parties
to purchase the right to register these names.

Four of the single-character names under .com were registered
by other parties before the IANA entered its registration of
these names. The registrations of these names have been (and
are) grandfathered for the time being. Recently some of these
registrations have been transferred from one third party to
another. Those transfers are consistent with the grandfathering
policy.

Having assumed the responsibility for operating the IANA, and
for overall technical management of the Internet, ICANN is
following the same policies for the operation of the IANA as
were followed by Dr. Postel and his colleagues at the Information
Sciences Institute. ICANN's charter and bylaws, together with its
obligations under its various agreements with the United States
Government, establish consensus-based procedures for modification
of existing policies, fostering participation by affected parties.
Until the policy is changed by the established procedures, ICANN
is required to continue its registration of the single-letter
.com domain names for the benefit of the Internet community.

While one can understand your company's desire to adopt a catchy
name such as "d," trademark it, and use "d.com" as its domain name,
giving up these domain names to private parties would, as
reflected in existing policy, restrict the IANA's ability to
fulfill its responsibility to ensure a stable, extensible domain-
name system.

Best regards,

Louis Touton
ICANN Vice President
As a response to someone elses inquiry. Guess that about sums it up.

ToastyX
02-20-2002, 09:16 AM
Wow, someone is psychic. :D I was wondering the same exact thing the other day. Single-character domain names wouldn't cause any problems. I wonder what the real reason is.

Lats
02-20-2002, 09:20 AM
I'd imagine they would be worth a pretty penny on the open market.

L.com would be good :)


Lats...

greggish
02-20-2002, 10:44 AM
Q.com and X.com are not the only ones. Nissan Motors owns Z.com

Gurudev
02-20-2002, 05:18 PM
X.com was a company, so it is possible that they got it based on their company name. Regarding others, it is possible that they claimed it based on a registered trademark (if in fact, they have registered trademarks). For example, Z has been associated for long with the 300zx and 200zx of Nissan modles.

JayC
02-21-2002, 01:34 AM
Originally posted by Gurudev
X.com was a company, so it is possible that they got it based on their company name. Regarding others, it is possible that they claimed it based on a registered trademark (if in fact, they have registered trademarks). The point is, even if you had a single-character company name or trademark, single-character domain names are not available as a matter of policy in any TLDs administered by ICANN. Those that are in use by companies were registered before IANA instituted that policy and reserved the remaining names themselves.

ScottD
02-21-2002, 01:44 AM
The three single letter .COMs were all registered before the web really existed. The funny thing about that is that domain registration was free at that time. I owned boo.com back in 1995 and boy do I regret my "protest" to being charged $50/year. I let it drop because I refused to pay. Big oops!