advice NIC reserving pending .io drops - how often?

[NickB]

Hi

I have been doing some research into short 1 word .io names and I have come across a name that has been reserved by NIC ( https://www.nic.io ). The name was due to drop later today.

Can someone please let me know how often does this happens, is it quite often with NIC?

I have searched through a few .io names and this is the first time I have come across this.

Is it similar to the .co registrar in some way where if they spot the extension is trending, trading at a higher volume etc they will start to reserve good names and then put up the initial purchase cost and/or renewal and mark it as a "premium" ? Or have registrars always done this with good names.

Any answers would be appreciated.

EDIT: This might need to be moved to the extensions thread (my bad)

 

[talas]

Yes, sometimes the .IO registry will restore some expiring .IO domains to "Reserved by Registry".

One example: muse.io . It expired on 2018-08-30 and should be released on 2018-11-13.

It is a privilege to registry.