Tucked away in the news concerning Dish wanting internet url sites was a little tidbit by Joe Clayton:
Dish Network Corp. (DISH), the second- largest U.S. satellite-TV provider, applied for the Web-address suffixes “.direct” and “.dtv” -- names that relate more closely to the brand of its chief competitor, DirecTV. (DTV)
A nonprofit Web-management group released a list yesterday of 1,930 applications of new Internet domain suffixes, which companies can use to market their brands and operations. The idea is to go beyond the typical dot-com addresses that are common today. Dish applied for 13 of the names, with two appearing to reference its larger rival.
Aaron Johnson, a spokesman for Englewood, Colorado-based Dish, said the names have nothing to do with DirecTV. Dish is applying for the suffixes to potentially attach them to marketing, strategic and competitive services, Johnson said. He declined to cite specific products or programs that the suffixes may relate to.
“We see these names serving a variety of applications,” Johnson said.
DirecTV doesn’t plan to challenge the applications, which cost $185,000 each. El Segundo, California-based DirecTV didn’t apply for any of the suffixes itself because the company isn’t intending to use them, said Darris Gringeri, a spokesman.
U.S. regulators blocked a proposed merger between Dish and DirecTV in 2002. Dish Chief Executive Officer Joseph Clayton said last year he wouldn’t discount the possibility of a future merger between the two companies.
Dish shares rose 1 percent to $27.22 at 3:19 p.m. in New York. DirecTV climbed 2.1 percent to $43.89.
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