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Pile up! GM cancels two more new gTLD bids
Kevin Murphy,
February 19, 2013, 08:53:53 (UTC),
Domain Policy
Is General Motors bowing out of ICANN’s new gTLD program completely? It’s certainly looking that way, following the withdrawal of two more of its five original applications.
ICANN updated its site yesterday to reflect that GM has yanked its bids for .chevrolet and .cadillac, two of its proposed automotive dot-brands.
It comes just a few days after its .gmc application was pulled, and suggests that its remaining applications — for .buick and .chevy — may also be withdrawn in the near future.
The total number of gTLD applications withdrawn is now up to 17, a dozen of which are dot-brands, from an original list of 1,930.
We may be seeing more in the near future. Applications withdrawn before ICANN publishes Initial Evaluation results — expected to start March 23 — qualify for a refund of 70%, or $130,000. After that, the refund halves.
The final number of withdrawn applications will be telling, and likely to inform future new gTLD application rounds.
If it turns out a large number of companies applied for dot-brands purely defensively (I wouldn’t consider 12 to 17 withdrawals a large number) then ICANN may have to rethink how the program is structured.
Why in the world would they have to rethink the program?
Consiser .xxx for a moment. We know that approximately 90% of the registrations are defensive. Another 9% were purchased by domainers choosing to speculate in adult domain names. And the final 1% is used by the consumer for whom the TLD was supposedly intended.
This is a brilliant business model. ICM is not selling anyone anything that they want. They are not selling anyone anything that they need. Instead, they are running a Reputation-Protection Service. If you pay ICM a few hundd dollars, ICM, empowered and sanctioned by ICANN will ensure that you, your company, or your child’s school name do not appear next to xxx, porn, and sex.
ICM has succesfully run this “Pay or be Digitally Raped” business model for two years now and has extracted tens of millions of dollars from businesses, schools and organizations.
Why shouldn’t or wouldn’t the same businss model work for ICANN?