.boots Domain

Pharmacy and health retail sit behind .boots, applied for in ICANN's 2012 New gTLD Program. Pharmacy carries a risk profile distinct from general retail: fake online pharmacies selling counterfeit or unapproved medicines are a persistent public health problem, and they work by adopting domains that borrow the credibility of an established dispensing brand. A closed extension removes that borrowing at the registration layer.

A registry agreement was signed in January 2015, the extension went on to hold Specification 13 .brand status, and the agreement was subsequently terminated. The string doubles as an ordinary English word, so the application carried defensive value beyond the pharmacy context — value now forfeited. It cannot be registered by any party and would require a future ICANN application round to return to service.