Do you want to Control an Empire or just a Single .whatever Domain Name?

Evening Folks!!

This post may not be as meaningful without reading my first post earlier today. = empire.

.Candy= empire

BUT,, = unlimited variations =


hard.candy, chocolate.candy, dietetic.candy single domain names that are difficult and may be impossible to expand and compete with each other. They are likely owned by hundreds of different folks. That seems to divide a market not be able to take over one.

So the latter you have to win all 3 variations and the hundreds of thousands of others to take control but with you get them all as add-on.

So I as the .com owner compete with the registry not with the single domains. I already own those. All the others compete with each other. I have EVERY variation and combination they can come up with. EVERY single one and the confusion all those folks combined will cause will also cause to grow and expand and become bigger and more powerful.

And the owner of the whatever.candy owns ONE! He controls ONE! And he expands how??

My value is DESTINED to skyrocket and I just demonstrated  ONE reason why. Just one. There are many. It has taken me 2 YEARS and dozens of blog posts right here that examined this issue from top to bottom and side to side.

And tomorrow I will be posting the video that will be watched from every corner of this industry and beyond. I hope it plays as well out here as it did inside the conference room. We kicked things around and everyone made their points and the future tells all.

Rick Schwartz


17 thoughts on “Do you want to Control an Empire or just a Single .whatever Domain Name?

  1. bhartzer

    And then there’s those people who buy 1000 domains, all related to the same industry. Now that’s controlling an empire right? Ideally, one would own: (and 1000 other domains with ‘candy’ in them).
    .candy (and all the subdomains)

  2. Rick Schwartz

    Agreed! It would be wise to get and the other 1000 .com variations if you can. However there would be no need to tie up those dollars on .net, .org, .biz, .mobi and all the rest.

  3. UFO

    This is a great point. Something I’d not really considered as I was looking at other aspects. But yes, ownership of the ‘controlling’ keyword when shifted to the right shifts to the benefit of the registry.

    One issue I’d also like to raise is around these registries paying an auction price and charging whatever they want for domains they issue. To me, it has ALL THE HALLMARKS of the UDRP where instead of the domainer acting in bad faith against ICANN rules registries now are. Are registries controlling a large portfolio of names? Yes. Are they charging more than out of pocket expenses? Yes, are they exploiting rights holders with prior claim? Yes (Because anything more than the ICANN fee they are charged is profiteering). Their business model IS predicated on charging far more than ICANN fees simply to recoup their auction price and by the simply act of being ‘profit maximising’ then its obvious they are in it for the money.

    ICANN should NEVER have allowed the auction process, NEVER allowed registries to sell domains and NEVER allowed them to set whatever they wanted for renewals. New TLDs should have been handed to NOT FOR PROFIT organisations. If they do (which they have) then they should rip up the URDP process against domainers and make it clear that all registries are open for legal challenge on cybersquatting and IP infringement.

    Also, I’m now reading about these private auctions and how applicants seem to be getting what appears to be the proceeds of the auction by losing, as it’s done prior to ICANN auction process. If this is the case then it looks to me even closer to racketeering and collusion.

  4. UFO

    Nb: When I talk about Not for Profit organisations I mean they are registries but not with the profit motive. The act the way .com started, they hand out domains to whoever comes first with a sunrise for any trademark holders etc.

  5. DrDomainer

    Rick you have given the killer answer why premium dot coms are going to skyrocket. I have been reading your for blog years and this post is going to change some domainers lives forever. You’re always taking about type in traffic that gTLDs are going to give premium .com

    So many premium dot com owners are going to make a huge list of sub domain keywords and its just a matter of time before the type in traffic starts to boom.


  6. DrDomainer would be worth billions


  7. LSM

    Academic arguments are pointless. It all boils down to one thing. Will businesses of meaningful size adopt and market their web presence on these? Will meaningful web applications like ebay or youtube be built on these?

    There’s no telling what happens in other parts of the world- nor do I really care- but here in the US (which is my own sphere of interest), by show of hands, how many of you can reach into your pocket right now and pull out a $1 coin? The answer is VERY few. Why? Because in spite of the the ‘academic’ argument for $1 coins being strong- bulletproof, even- NOBODY FUCKING WANTS THEM! We’ve tried and tried and tried again, first with Eisenhower dollars that were ‘too large’, then with Susan B Anthony dollars that were ‘too confusing and looked like quarters’, again with the $1 coins we have now that are essentially marginalized to the change you get back from the stamp machine at the post office.

  8. Jeff Schneider

    Hello Rick,

    We do not forsee a future in which there is a .whatever shadow market buying .whatevers. While on the back of the stage out of sight the .COM Shadow market expands exponentially.

    The .whatever camp will be trumpeting and extolling every .whatever sale very publicly, while the super lucrativel action will remain in the secretive non-disclosure sales of the .COM Shadow Market.

    Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)

  9. leonard britt

    What guarantee do. Com registrants / domain renters have that Verisign will not increase. Com renewal prices for premium. Com domains to whatever they want?

  10. Jeff Schneider

    In an era of new technologies obsolescing in months not years, any new technology that introduces itself has a very short shelf life. It is our contention that the .whatevers are a new Marketing technology whose introduction is meeting up with well entrenched competitors, already operating in the DNS, as trusted intermediaries, in consumers minds. To say .whatevers are a gamble is an understatement.

    Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)

  11. Anita


    Amen to that, Rick!

    The overwhelming feeling of “will this work for me or will that??” will drive more and more people to .COM like never before as their gut feeling will be to do what most established companies are doing at that point in time (whenever that would be I still see it being .COM). When .COM is out of reach they might settle for a lesser domain till they make money or get funding and then they will still try to buy the .COM if they want to compete with the big guys.

  12. Martin

    All this .Whatever may not have serious impact outside USA I live in Nigeria with a population of 160million Google marketed to Nigerians how important it is for us to deal with our local sites in searching for products and services they themselves launched, the ministry of communications and technology said in other to reduce cybercrime it will be wise companies are encouraged to switch to many companies are doing that. So can someone tell me why a Nigerian will register .whatever, Ministry of communications and technology is Nigerian govt.

  13. Tommy Hemmingsson

    Let say you are the lucky owner of a Safari Camp in Africa. We can call it Bobidi Safari Lodge. Now I dont own a Safari Camp, but I am the owner of With I can expand it into a subdomain like or an e-mail address I don’t know how many variants you can make out of Candy, but I can make around 3000 different subdomains and e-mail addresses out of And the numbers of Safari Camps are growing day by day. or adds on top of the .

  14. Zomo

    Nice point, Rick.

    I thought I had thought of every drawback to the new TLDs because I have spent so much time thinking about it.

    This is a new one to me and a biggie!


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