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Ask HN: Why can't I buy this .app domain?

6 points by jeremija ↗ HN
I just had a weird experience on NameCheap. I found a .app domain that I really liked and wanted to buy it. Unfortunately, I got an error message after trying to add it to my cart.

As an example I'll be using `drive.app`. There is no whois record for this domain, but https://domains.google says it's unavailable:

    $ whois -h whois.nic.google drive.app
    Domain not found.
    >>> Last update of WHOIS database: 2018-12-29T10:51:11Z <<<
Here is also a link to my screen capture of domains.google: https://i.imgur.com/an9Gp4M.gif

Thanks!

13 comments

[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 39.3 ms ] thread
therealmarv
.app is owned by Google. Google can make their own rules on this domain top level and block e.g. drive.app !
jeremija
They seem to have blocked a lot of single-word domains that do not have a WHOIS record. They mark some as premium, but even with that, there's no way to buy any of them.
Tomte
You might be surprised to hear that Google has a product named "Drive".
jeremija
I know. I used that as an example because I didn't want to share the domain name that I wanted. There are a bunch of single-word domains which are not available, but have no WHOIS record.
Tomte
My guess stays the same: your word is either a Google trademark or a domain name Google is itself interested in and has reserved it for possibly future use.
offsetr
Just for laughs why not email the Google domains team?
throwaway8879
I imagine it's not available. Namecheap does that sometimes. It says something is available when it's not.

Incidentally, I own a drive.* domain. Have no idea if it's worth anything. I've been meaning to point it at my personal nextcloud instance but been too lazy.

jeremija
Yeah I figured it happens because they only check if there is a WHOIS record. At first I thought they registered it automatically after I showed interest (like people claim GoDaddy does sometimes), but that's why I started investigating. Looks like domains.google is the "source of truth" since Google owns .app after all. I've previously thought that if a domain is not available, there would be a WHOIS record, but I guess that's not the case here.
throwaway8879
I'm not sure whether public WHOIS records cover all TLDs or not. Perhaps the newer ones like .app are not available? In any case, running whois on drive.app in the terminal tells me "domain not found".
whttheuuu
Funny enough, I did the same thing a few days ago and noticed the same thing.

Noticed it was available, then tried to register it and after a refresh it was unavailable.

Not sure if it was just a glitch or whether NameCheap was registering domains.

sbr464
I bought a few hundred for a project, which one?
billconan
I had a similar experience that a domain was shown as available, but when I check out, it said unavailable for purchasing or something.