[uz3snolc3t6fnrq]

.george is a pretty funny one. apparently Walmart owns it, so you probably won't be able to register a .george domain any time soon.

https://icannwiki.org/.george

do companies even use these in the wild or are they buying these TLDs for nothing? ".brother", ".canon", ".nokia", ".panasonic", ".playstation", ".xbox", ".xerox"... there's even ".sandvikcoromant", which is some sort of Swedish metalwork company.

[arcfour]

Amazon/AWS use them (.aws), so does Google (.google) but I agree, it is pretty funny how many companies seemed to get on board (out of fear of being left out?) and then...didn't use them for some reason?

[0x3f]

Google does use theirs for public-facing landing pages even [1], just not uniformly, but that's very on-brand for Google as an org.

Where have you seen .aws in use though?

[1] e.g. https://quantumai.google/

[serv0id]

https://skillbuilder.aws/

[xp84]

notebooklm.google too

yeah if I had to guess there's too much that's already pointed at google.com and with their main business being leveraging cookie data for ad money I bet whoever in the org might think it'd be rad to switch to mail.google, search.google, android.google, etc. gets beaten over the head with a stack of $100 bills anytime he brings it up.

I wonder, would the other browser vendors agree to treat all of .google as one entity in terms of 'same domain rule' if Google promised they aren't selling subdomains to anyone else? I'm not aware of any TLD treated like that presently. So yeah, seems like the corporate domains, at least of adtech titans, will never be used for much but redirects.

[abhiyerra]

https://calculator.aws

[zoover2020]

AWS uses the TLD internally

[NoahZuniga]

and about.google

[0x3f]

George is the clothing brand of the ASDA supermarket chain in the UK, which Walmart used to own. I'm not sure if it's a brand they use worldwide though; I don't really go to Walmart when in the US. Either way, that's why they own it, presumably.

[petepete]

When a supermarket's own clothing brand has its own TLD. What a time to be alive.

Just checked underpants.george and, disappointingly, it's not being used.

[bombcar]

https://www.walmart.com/search?q=George finds quite a bit but why they’d pay for that TLD and not for any of the other store brands they have is unknown.

[xp84]

At least as far back as the the 90s Walmart was selling George clothing in the US too. IDK what predates what, though. Or if they are currently.

There was also a George magazine, which... I think belonged to RFK (Senior)?

[ascorbic]

It was introduced to Walmart in 1999 when they bought Asda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_(fashion_label)

[xp84]

Correction: JFK Junior, of course!

[showerst]

Aside: Sandvik Coromant is a major industrial conglomerate with billions in revenue. Their cutting tools almost certainly made some things you use daily. Not that it has any bearing on them having a tld, but they’re not some random local metal shop, heh.

[picafrost]

I wouldn't say it's for nothing. Brands with trademarks have a legal incentive under trademark law to acquire their trademarked name everywhere. Not doing so immediately risks a future legal and bad PR battle if some smaller company acquires it first.

[wildzzz]

Owning a gTLD isn't the same as registering a trademark. It's on par with petitioning the local government to rename the street your business is on to your business name. There's an incentive to fight for your trademark, Apple would probably sue anyone starting a business with the word Apple in it if there was any chance that the company does anything with technology. However, Apple has no ownership of the word Apple. I could start a pick your own apple orchard called Apple Farms and buy the gTLD so I could have pickyourown.apple.

[picafrost]

I agree that owning a gTLD is not the same as registering a trademark, but I'm claiming that to a company it's the same as protecting their trademark. For the same reason that companies register their names on every new social networking website, even if they don't actively use it.

To give a slightly ridiculous example (just for fun), just as someone could make pickyourown.apple they could also register tim.apple and start an excellent phishing campaign.

[kotaKat]

https://global.canon/en/c-museum/

Canon does use .canon for a few things, at least.

[moberley]

Brother has a similar global website.

https://global.brother/

[sneak]

Anything to help them win the fight against HP, I’m for.

[ascorbic]

According to that link .george is just a proposed TLD. Presumably it's not proposed anymore, because Walmart no longer owns it.