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Neiman Marcus acquire Premium Domain
Neiman Marcus have acquired the domain name bg.com to use in conjunction with their Bergdorf Goodman brand. So far it remains unclear whether or not the retail chain actually paid for the domain however.
The domain bg.com has an original registration date of March 2002 and has had two prior registrants. The first was Bristol Group Ltd, followed by Domein Bulgaria Ltd. Given the initials of the first registrant and the fact that the country code for Bulgaria is BG, it would have appeared that both had legitimate uses for the domain.
Domainers who approached the registrant of the domain name previously have reported that they were quoting an asking price of at least $300K for the domain, and were using ddna.com as their broker should a sale be agreed. The WHOis record was then updated on the 24th of July this year to reflect the new registrant, Neiman Marcus. So, did they fork out hundreds of thousands of dollars for the domain?
One savvy blogger for The Domains has pointed out several factors that seem to suggest otherwise. Their primary domain neimanmarcus.com has an administrative contact of DNSadmin@neimanmarcus.com. However domains they have recently won in UDRP proceedings, including neaumanmarcus.com and niemnmarcus.com have the email address udrp3@cph.com instead. This new domain, bg.com, also carries the udrp3@cph.com email address. This would suggest that this has not been a straightforward purchase and legal leverage has come into play.
After checking the UDRP filings however it would appear that no cases have been brought disputing this domain name, so if Neiman Marcus did use legal force to acquire the domain, it never resulted in a claim being filed.
The domain is currently being used to forward to their main brand site, bergdorfgoodman.com. I expect this will be used for shortened URLs on mobile devices, and is useful for those who can’t seem to spell the actual brand name.
I would certainly hope that the previous domain owner got their asking price, as this domain name is clearly a valuable piece of online property.