Daniel Negari’s launch of the dot .XYZ gTLD has an interesting side-story.
It appears that the entire plan began with the acquisition of the three letter .com domain, XYZ.com.
In July 2010, XYZ.com was sold during TRAFFIC, in Vancouver, Canada; the franchised auction was successfully handled by Rick Latona back then.
The selling price of XYZ.com was $50,000 dollars, according to DNJournal covering the auction.
Not too shabby, for a “bad letter” LLL .com right in the middle of the bad economy crisis and all that, especially for a domain name that was supposedly not for sale.
For several years, its previous owner had posted this strong message on XYZ.com:
“I’ve had several people ask if xyz.com is for sale. The answer is NO, xyz.com is NOT for sale.
The idiots who insist on asking to buy xyz.com are becoming more agressive, NO, xyz.com is NOT for sale. Go away, do not bother me.
Since some twirp is trying to scam people by trying to sell this domain to them, let me make this MORE clear: xyz.com has never been for sale, it is not for sale at this time, and will not be put up for sale. If you are told otherwise, you are being scammed, don’t fall for it.”
You can view a snapshot from 2008 at the Wayback Machine Archive.
In early 2011, under Negari’s ownership, XYZ.com LLC, a Nevada limited liability company, was formed and the rest is history.
Will dot .XYZ succeed?
That remains to be seen.
Negari seems to have some strong financial backing, a much-needed element of gTLD registries that need to establish traction in the global domain marketplace, where competition is fierce.
I sent a polite email inquiry to the ex-owner Michael Galassi with a $50k+ offer in 2009, I got this response from him ‘Go fuck yourself, You are just stupid’