The list of the most lucrative auctions in the world includes the auction held for the sale of new domain names, held by ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers. This time the winning bid for one of the domain names on sale was for $25m made by Google Inc., which was the highest bid made in the auction this time.
Google Inc. bid 25m for the purchase of the domain extension .app, which was the winning bid by a landslide. The bid was put up by ICANN on its most recent auction of domain names, the organization responsible for making and selling off domain names on the internet. On the same auction, domain names .baby, .salon, and .VIP, among others, were also sold off to various bidders.
It is only Google’s highly lucrative bid that has grasped the attention of tech industry analysts all over the word who have been shocked by the company’s confidence in the domain name. However, it makes more sense for Google Inc. than for anyone else to purchase a domain name ending in .app, considering the company’s highly lucrative app store business the company runs called Google Play Store.
.app was not the only domain name Google bid for in this year’s auction. Other domain names that were bid on by the company include .docs, .foo, .free, and .android.
The move made by Google to purchase the .app domain for $25 million is certainly an expensive one, but it is not uncommon for tech businesses to purchase domain names in the millions of dollars. Ever since ICANN has been selling off domain names since June 2014, the organization has sold off many domain names to multiple companies in different auctions.
Last year Google bid for the .tech domain name in one of the company’s auction in millions of dollars, however, the company was outbid by Dot Tech, which won the domain name for a hefty bid of $6.7 million. Amazon purchased the domain names .buy and .spot for $5m and $2.2m, respectively.
These figures seem shallow in front of Google’s $25 million bid for the domain name .app, which makes it even more interesting for analysts to understand the reason behind Google’s profound interest in the domain name. The most rational explanation is to establish a link of this purchase with the Google Play Store app store run by the company. However, the greatest question on the mind of industry experts is this: will Google be selling this domain name to the general public? An even more important question is this: will anyone be interested in purchasing this domain name to host a website?
The answer is yes, according to some analysts, who claim the app developer market has grown so much that developers are now looking to establish their identity in the industry. By having a website on the .app domain, it would better distinguish their website among the trillions of others that exist on the internet.
However, whether Google plans to sell the domain name this way is still a question. The company has not yet commented on its most recent purchase.
