On July 27, ICANN announced that NU DOT CO have won the auction for the .WEB nTLD.
ICANN officially announced:
NU DOT CO LLC prevailed in the auction for the price of $135 million to operate the .WEB gTLD
Power Auctions LLC, ICANN‘s authorized auction service provider, conducted a New Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Program auction to resolve contention for .WEB and .WEBS.
Eight applicants completed the requirements for participating in the .WEB/.WEBS auction. NU DOT CO LLC prevailed in the auction for the price of $135 million to operate the .WEB gTLD.
The .WEBS gTLD was also awarded in the same process to Vistaprint Ltd for just $1.
In general, auctions serve as the last resort for determining which applicant may operate a gTLD when several entities have applied for the same or similar gTLDs.
After initially running into turbulence with the .WEB auction, ICANN finally decided to go ahead with it earlier this week.