A single-letter domain, an AI-related name, and a category-killer domain hack appear to have been sold by Google Registry during the latest week of its ongoing Early Access Period for the new .ing gTLD.
Judging by the .ing zone file, at least three domains have been registered in .ing since I last posted about the apparent seven-figure sale of host.ing a couple weeks ago.
The new names are w.ing, shipp.ing and tur.ing. I assume tur.ing refers to war hero Alan Turing, one of the fathers of computing and namesake of the Turing Test, used to judge AI intelligence.
w.ing was registered first, on November 13, when it would have incurred a six-figure price tag, according to published registrar retail prices. The registrant is listed as Google via the registrar Markmonitor.
Unlike w.ing and host.ing, the other two were registered via GoDaddy (albeit with redacted registrant names) so we can be more confident they are actually sales to third-party registrants.
Both shipp.ing and tur.ing were registered shortly after Google’s EAP rolled over into week three pricing ($35,000 at 101Domain‘s low-end prices, as a guide) on November 21 at 1600 UTC.
If Whois can be relied upon, the shipp.ing registrant is based in Texas and the tur.ing registrant in Arizona.
tur.ing is the only one trying to resolve currently, from where I’m sitting, but it fails due to a cert error.
Google’s EAP enters week four tomorrow at 1600 UTC, at which point prices fall daily until they settle at general availability pricing on December 5.
The post Google sells five-figure AI domain and six-figure .ing hack first appeared on Domain Incite.
