gTLD Strategy

It’s summertime. Your new gTLD applications are in, the jury (or in this case, the ICANN Board) is still out on batching, and Initial Evaluation is just barely underway. We couldn’t blame you if you wanted to kick back, relax, or even sneak off to the beach for a day or two.

Here at FairWinds, we’ll be spending this slight downtime in – where else? – the New gTLD Applicant Guidebook. Most recently, we delved into the pages of the Guidebook to break down the four paths that applications can take once they get through Initial Evaluation. Now, certain applications will inevitably have to go down multiple paths, given their circumstances. But for the sake of this post, we’ll discuss the four separately.

Path 1: Transition to Delegation

This is every applicant’s dream – their application is problem-free and not in contention with any other applied-for string. In this case, the application does not attract any objections or hit any other roadblocks and can proceed directly to delegation. At this point, the applicant can work on finalizing the Registry Agreement, the contract it holds with ICANN to operate its new gTLD registry, and carry out any pre-delegation testing that is necessary. This is, as they say, the path of least resistance. All applications have to undergo this process eventually, as it’s basically the last step before launching a new gTLD, but only certain applications will be able to move through this phase immediately after Initial Evaluation. The transition to delegation can take anywhere from two to nine months, but if the applicant chooses to delay, it can take up to 18 months.

Path 2: Extended Evaluation

In the event that ICANN’s evaluators deem an application incomplete, lacking in some way, or just generally worthy of a closer look, that application will move into Extended Evaluation. The applicant will then have the chance to clear up those aspects of its application that the evaluators determined needed clarification or improvement in some way. If the technical portion of the application, namely, the answers to the registry operations questions, raises concerns among the evaluators, the applicant will have to pay a $50,000 fee to sort out any technical issues that the evaluators identify. This process is expected to take approximately five months, after which, if the applicant is successful, the application moves to Transition to Delegation.

Path 3: Contention Sets

If you take a look at the list of gTLD applications, you’ll find that 1,930 applications were submitted for 1,409 strings, meaning over 700 applications will proceed down this path toward a Contention Set. We all know the drill here – if there is a community-based application in the group, it will win out over any standard applications. If not, or if there are multiple community-based applications in the Set, the applicants will have the opportunity to reach an agreement on their own, or if not, eventually move to an auction to decide whose application prevails. Depending on a variety of factors, this can take anywhere from eight weeks to six months, after which the prevailing application moves to Transition to Delegation. If any application in the Contention Set has to undergo Extended Evaluation, all other applications in the Set have to sit tight until after that process concludes.

Path 4: Dispute Resolution

If an application draws any one of ICANN’s four types of objections – String Confusion, Community, Limited Public Interest, or Legal Rights – it must undergo the appropriate Dispute Resolution procedure. In this case, both parties (the objector and the applicant) must put up an administrative fee up front, generally between $5,000 and $10,000. Most Dispute Resolution procedures use a “loser pays” model, meaning the prevailing party will get its initial fee back at the end of the procedure. If the applicant can successfully navigate the Dispute Resolution process, the application moves to Transition to Delegation or a Contention Set, if applicable. If it is unsuccessful, its application will not become a new gTLD.

So there you have it, the four paths that applications can and will travel down once Initial Evaluation is complete. At this point, we have no indication that ICANN missed its deadline of beginning Initial Evaluation on July 12, and if the Board decides that applications will be evaluated in a single batch, these paths will open up around December of this year. Happy trails!

Politics and government abound when your headquarters are located in Washington, DC. The White House is a relatively short walk down Pennsylvania Avenue from our office in Georgetown, and the Capitol is not much further than that. There are even rumors that the CIA used to have a secret drop-off spot just a block from our office.

But despite the fact that we come just short of having a constant parade of donkeys and elephants right outside our window, we tend to stay out of the political side of things and focus mostly on the private sector here at FairWinds. But every once in a while, Capitol Hill finds its way into the work we do, like when we investigated the prevalence of identity squatting among members of Congress. Identity squatting is a lot like cybersquatting, except instead of brand names, third parties register domains containing the names of prominent individuals (in this case, politicians) in bad faith or with the intent to profit off the fame of those individuals. (more...)

Here at FairWinds, we take a lot of pride in the services we offer clients around new gTLDs. But traditionally, our services have focused on domain names in existing gTLDs – specifically, advising clients on the best ways to use domains to promote and protect their brands online. This is the major underlying mission of the work we do. That’s why we found it so amusing when we noticed that cybersquatters had begun registering domain names referencing brands’ new gTLD applications. Call it meta-cybersquatting, if you will, squatting on domains that are about...domains. (more...)

With the Public Meeting in Prague taking place less than two weeks after ICANN’s big reveal of the 1,930 new gTLD applications, it’s no surprise that certain applications and applicants were discussed openly during various sessions. For example, during the Public Forum on Thursday afternoon, a 14-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl from China (ICANN’s youngest participants ever?) stepped up to the open microphone to express her support for an open, unrestricted .KIDS gTLD. (more...)

After nearly a full week of debates, discussions, meetings, and even a handful of thinly veiled jabs from community members, the ICANN Board officially pronounced Digital Archery dead and gone today at around 2:35 PM, Prague time, during the Public Forum here at the ICANN Public Meeting.

Yes, there was applause. (more...)

Early this morning, at 7:30 AM Prague time, a group of new gTLD applicants and members of the gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) gathered in a meeting room to adopt the charter for a new group, the New TLD Applicant Group, or NTAG. The group was established under the umbrella of the RySG; its charter was based off the RySG charter and the group will utilize RySG resources like a mailing list and an administrator who can set up conference calls. (more...)

In the few days since ICANN made the decision to suspend the Digital Archery system for batching applications, discussions about next step have, not altogether unsurprisingly, focused not on how to improve Digital Archery, but alternatives to replace it entirely. Perhaps most significant is the groundswell that seems to be forming around the idea of tossing out batching completely, and instead evaluating all applications at once. (more...)

Yesterday, ICANN made waves by announcing that it had suspended the Digital Archery process for batching. In the public statement, ICANN stated, “The primary reason is that applicants have reported that the timestamp system returns unexpected results depending on circumstances." The decision came when the Digital Archery process was a mere five days away from closing – and still, only 20 percent of applicants had recorded a timestamp, or fired their digital “arrows” at that point, amounting to about 386 of the 1,930 applications. (more...)

One week after ICANN revealed 1,930 applications for new gTLDs, the Internet community continues to debate the validity of many parts of the application process. In particular, a great deal of chatter kicked up over the weekend about whether or not a brand’s ownership of a generic-term gTLD is anti-competitive. This debate has been fueled largely by corporate applications for generic words as gTLDs, like Amazon’s application for .MOVIE (in fact, Google and Amazon have been taking most of the flak, given their large volume of applications). (more...)