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analysis 5 Big Brands Who Don’t Own Their Exact Match .COM Name

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The majority of big brands around the world, who have funding available for domain purchases, have already acquired their exact-match .COM names. Established companies such as Freedom Mortgage (freedom.com) and ICE (ice.com) have spent seven-figure fees to upgrade their domain names. However, not all big brands own their exact-match .COM. Below, we profile five famous brands that haven't upgraded their names for one reason or another.


Argos - Argos.com

In the UK, Argos is a retailer that operates over eight-hundred stores and also offers a huge amount of products online at Argos.co.uk. Whilst the .CO.UK name may suffice for the British market, the company would need Argos.com to thrive internationally.

However, Argos.com is likely out of reach. After spending vast sums of money including six days in court, Argos Limited failed to gain control of the Argos.com domain with the name remaining under the ownership of American company Argos Systems Inc.

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Lime - Lime.com

Founded just over a year ago, Lime is receiving a lot of attention after securing a $335 Series C million funding round in July 2018 which was led by Google Ventures (GV). The company is operating on LimeBike.com and the hack name LI.ME.

As for Lime.com, the name looks to be owned by Cable & Wireless (CWC), forwarding to DiscoverFlow.co after CWC rebranded its subsidiary from Lime to Flow in 2015. It's possible that CWC may part with the name, but the deal hasn't happened yet.


Bird - Bird.com

Dockless scooter company Bird is another 2017 company that is receiving plenty of publicity after receiving $415 million in funding in three rounds this year. The startup, with strong "Bird" branding on all products, operates on the Bird.co domain name

The Bird.com domain has been developed by TABcom LLC, a company that owns and operates many premium names including Dog.com, Fish.com, and Garden.com. To acquire Bird.com, the scooter company would likely have to produce a substantial offer.


Ola - Ola.com

Ola offers a similar ride-sharing service to Uber and Lyft, having started in India in 2010. Since then, the company has raised $3.2 billion in funding and has moved into a number of other markets aside from India.

Despite the success and the $3.2 billion funding, the company still operates on OlaCabs.com, with Ola.com developed as an online auction platform.


Oscar - Oscar.com

Oscar Health, also known simply as Oscar, is a health insurance company based in New York that has raised a total of $1.3 billion since launching in 2012, with the latest $375 million funding round being announced in August 2018.

The company is, however, unlikely to be able to acquire Oscar.com since the name is currently owned by The Academy Awards, also known as The Oscars.
 
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Interesting stuff

Thanks for sharing
 
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Even Lyft likely wouldn't get Lift.com from OTIS
 
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Thank you.

Another huge one:

Nissan - nissan.com
 
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You can always rebrand but I think it's a bit short-sighted to go with a name where .COM is unobtainable especially if you have global ambitions.
 
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Maybe some of those companies should rethink their names before naming them :)
 
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That's kinda surprising. But there is no win against a stubborn American ;)

They could have. But instead of making a fair offer, their lawyer tricked him into conversation where they hoped they'll get something for court. The fraction of money they wasted for lawyers and ruining the man's life.

I am not into Japanese cars, but if I were, Nissan would have been out of question for me. I like voting with my wallet.
 
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I always find it very interesting how so many companies with many millions of dollars in funding do not buy exact match domains or their acronyms. Several times I ran into that issue where a firm with say 50 Million $ new venture funding or other revenue would not pay more than 5k or even less for their name. Only possible explanation for it I can think of is the person at the firm who handles domain buying fails to realize its value, possibly not even bothering to ask top management to pay more.
 
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I always find it very interesting how so many companies with many millions of dollars in funding do not buy exact match domains or their acronyms. Several times I ran into that issue where a firm with say 50 Million $ new venture funding or other revenue would not pay more than 5k or even less for their name. Only possible explanation for it I can think of is the person at the firm who handles domain buying fails to realize its value, possibly not even bothering to ask top management to pay more.

Sometimes top management are the ones who don't realize.

I was contacted by a guy who wanted a dictionary word .com that would be amazing for their industry and they have few companies generating millions and CEO/owner who is really rich.

So he is the upper management, he is super excited, he has direct access to the board and the CEO. But he comes back that it won't happen. Board said they have other priorities to focus on, CEO said, right now they are B2B and B2C won't happen until 1-2 years, so no.
 
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I am surprised that it is not worth it for the people who own argos(.)com to sell it for a huge price, and rebrand on something else either using their complete name of ArgosSystems or perhaps under their parent company Vertex. Someone has Argos(.)systems the ngTLD registered (possibly them?) but they could have an exact match by buying that and selling Argos to the bigger company at a much higher price. Their current website at Argos is not even SSL which will turn some people off!
 
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Maybe some of those companies should rethink their names before naming them :)
Funny enough, i've noticed several of the new high profile companies/brands even went for SHORTER names, which are harder in general(but probably to stand out more)- "Nest", "Bird", Echo", "Home". lol.
 
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I am surprised that it is not worth it for the people who own argos(.)com to sell it for a huge price, and rebrand on something else either using their complete name of ArgosSystems or perhaps under their parent company Vertex. Someone has Argos(.)systems the ngTLD registered (possibly them?) but they could have an exact match by buying that and selling Argos to the bigger company at a much higher price. Their current website at Argos is not even SSL which will turn some people off!

Argos Systems might be better of rebranding, but probably they reasonably assumed showing any interest might be interpreted as bad faith.
 
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I think most big Businesses that have been around for many years don't care too much about the same 'generic' name being used by another company providing it's not suffering financially as a result. It's the lawyers that are bad for the business by convincing them there's a challenge to be had. when you look back a lot of these businesses have been around long before the internet become popular, Argos retail, since I was knee-high to a grass-hopper.

What surprises me more is the number of businesses t
 
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*What surprises me more is the number of businesses that launch today without securing their corresponding domain, then allow that business to grow before calling 'foul' on the current domain holder

*added - lost the edit function on the above
 
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One of my favorite sites Newsnow.co.uk acquired the com version. Many companies need to follow suit to avoid losing traffic
 
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The majority of big brands around the world, who have funding available for domain purchases, have already acquired their exact-match .COM names. Established companies such as Freedom Mortgage (freedom.com) and ICE (ice.com) have spent seven-figure fees to upgrade their domain names. However, not all big brands own their exact-match .COM. Below, we profile five famous brands that haven't upgraded their names for one reason or another.

My favorite is Nissan.com

They sued and lost and have never sucked up their pride and paid the guy a fortune.

Huge mistake.
 
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