VetteDude said:
If Sony didn't buy those domains, someone else would. A nice squatter could use them now. Think the modernwarfare3.com fiasco but worse. |
They are custom top level domains... the ICANN would not let such obvious names go to other companies without good reason... and even if they would a squatter is not going to pay such a ridiculous amount of money for them (they all cost $185k + $25k per year FFS) when it's clear what the intention is, as they would just be sued (rightly so) by Sony or whoever they are clearly wanting to profit from.
I'm not entirely sure what the advantages are of having them other than having a nice streamlined web experience (ie instead of sony.com, sony.co.uk, sony.fr, sonypictures.com, sonyfh.jp (financial holdings), sony.net and all the other slightly different variations of website name based on sony's businesses across the globe... they can have this kind of thing: financial.sony, vaio.sony, pictures.sony... or maybe by country: usa.sony, uk.sony... or perhaps break it down by country at the 2nd level domain name then by various Sony businesses at the 3rd level: pictures.uk.sony, xperia.fr.sony.
It does give them a lot of freedom for structuring their web presence, but keeps their identity by always ending in .sony... other than that though it does seem like a lot of money to burn.
