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B.ORG is clearly the winner here.
I assume Paramount will be the winning bidder here.
they'll have to find a compelling nonprofit use for b.org
No they won't. That's not a provision for registration of a .org. Just a recommendation.
> [...] a large company conducting educational campaigns [...]

Correct that it won't necessarily have to be nonprofit, but in this case there is a selection process beyond just a credit card. My first thought if they apply is some sort of Make-A-Wish with a sci-fi orientation or some sort of tech/cinema/cinema-tech scholarship org.

(comment deleted)
I take it that you have to either be: quite special, or immensely well-funded, to apply for one of these gems?
> Really, I can own this?

> Yes, whether you are an individual with an idea to share, a small club organizing and motivating your members, or a large company conducting educational campaigns, these 1 or 2 character .ORG domain names will provide instant recognition - not to mention a short, easy-to-remember address to any mission.

The way they put it makes it sound like the best pitch wins, not necessarily the deepest pockets.

Edit: Just click/visit any of the domains to see this message.

...Better get to work then!
Both.

these names will be made available to registrants who not only reflect the core attributes of the .ORG domain but also reinforce the trust and value of the .ORG brand.

And if there's no price, you can't afford it.

I'm guessing my $50 offer for z.org to become a dedicated fan site for Jean Baptiste Emanuel Zorg won't fly then? Fuck it, submitted an application anyway.
Speaking of fly, does anyone want to sponsor me? I'd like to make a family friendly counterpart to http://dont-fuck-with-the-b.org/ to occasionally 'blog' (= post links I saw elsewhere) about bee colony collapse disorder, which I haven't gotten around to in years now, but will do soon; I feel that owning b.org would be just the thing to kick my motivation over the threshold. I think it also really meshes with the stated goal of strengthening the trust in .org domains, so please kindly consider my offer of you paying lots of money for me to have b.org. Thanks! ^^
Yeah, somehow I don't think using l.h.o.o.q.org as a private joke is quite what they had in mind.
At first, I am in disbelief about k.org and b.org - I figured KORG would have acquired the former and some Star Trek fan (or Paramount themselves) would have acquired the latter. But then I realized that the holders of these domains were probably asking too much and while there's no infringing content being hosted, the owners of these marks don't care.

If you're planning on acquiring one of these and hosting anything related to someone else's "IP," be ready for legal harassment.

> I realized that the holders of these domains were probably asking too much

Up until now these domains have been reserved and never released for registration.

My misunderstanding. Thanks.
I think as a .org, you have to be a nonprofit.

I just offered $1000 to for b.org, to host a nonprofit effort to develop positronic brains. It's kind of a silly idea of mine, for now, which is why it's a nonprofit =)

https://github.com/ityonemo/positronicbrain

I have a .org and am not a non-profit. I do however use if for not-for-profit purposes but I when I registered the domain, no one asked.
It's recommended for nonprofits, but not restricted to. I have sleepingcyb.org, and I am not a nonprofit.
slashdot.org is for profit
Craigslist.org is for-profit. In fact their motto lately seems to be "sue everyone, because... money"
I was looking for this; how do you bid?
T.ORG should go to the Tor Project.
I was curious about single-character non-.org domains and found this to be an interesting read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-letter_second-level_doma...

Essentially, before Project94, all single-letter domains in .com/.org/.net were reserved except for those that existed in 1993 (i.net, q.com, q.net, x.com, x.org, z.com). Nissan (famous for not owning nissan.com) owns z.com and has a Z series of cars but doesn't use it.

I can't tell from the page how much these cost. The linked page seems to suggest that they might be free for the right organization, but if you go to one of the domain pages, there's an "Offer Amount" text box.
Does GoDaddy strike you as the kind of organization that would give away a 2-letter .org domain out of the goodness of their hearts?

This whole "project" strikes me as a way for GoDaddy to charitywash a campaign to sell some squatter's (eNom) 1- and 2-character domains. Naturally the "right organizations" will be Fortune 50 companies or VC-backed startups; which is why we're reading about it here, I imagine.

The domains were not squatted. The .ORG registry never permitted 1 or 2 letter .ORG domains to be registered until now.
.org is fantastic because VeriSign doesn't control it. Though the organization that controls .org isn't the most benevolent either, but it's a lot better, it seems.
Project94 is the allocation of 94 1-2 character .ORG domain names

but at the moment, there are only 35 available at http://www.project94.org/contactus/

  0.ORG
  1.ORG
  2.ORG
  3.ORG
  4.ORG
  5.ORG
  6.ORG
  7.ORG
  8.ORG
  9.ORG
  A.ORG
  B.ORG
  C.ORG
  D.ORG
  E.ORG
  F.ORG
  G.ORG
  H.ORG
  I.ORG
  J.ORG
  K.ORG
  L.ORG
  M.ORG
  N.ORG
  O.ORG
  P.ORG
  Q.ORG
  R.ORG
  S.ORG
  T.ORG
  U.ORG
  V.ORG
  Y.ORG
  Z.ORG
  ZQ.ORG
wp.org belongs to a squatter. Would have been nice in the hands of the Wordpress Foundation.
I'd nominate it for Wikipedia.
wikipedia should have w.org
Registered for the s.org with http://www.sciencegist.com, free and open source project that aims to bring scientific papers closer to everyone. Offered a fair chunk of money too, but I'm sure it's not going to be enough. Quite silly, these domain name wars :)