News Digest

Amazon wins right to sell .book and .buy domain names in $15m deal

Amazon has won the right to sell domain names ending in .book after beating off competition from eight other companies including Google. It is understood to have paid up to $10m (£6.3m) at a private auction, just days after shelling out $4.6m (£2.9m) for .buy - but it was beaten to the rights to .cloud by Italian company Aruba. Other top-level domains settled in recent days include .dog, .live, .online, .tennis and .chat. The two remaining domain name extensions due to be auctioned off by 19 November are .dot and .apartments.

While Cyber Monday has always been our biggest single day for sales, the growing success of Black Friday illustrates that it has become a much-anticipated date as the nation prepares for the festive season.

Xavier Garambois, vice president of EU Retail at Amazon, on December 1’s ‘Cyber Monday’

The auctions are a result of a decision by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) - which governs domain names. Last year it decided to create scores of new domain name suffixes as alternatives to the likes of .com and .co.uk. While country-level domain names exist around the world, the decision opened the door to domains for cities, such as the .london domain which went live earlier this year. More commercially valuable top-level domain names are due to be auctioned in December.