Two more new gTLD bids bite the dust

ICANN appears to have formally killed off two new gTLD applications that had asked for subsidized application fees.

The bids for .idn and .ummah both failed to meet the criteria of ICANN’s Applicant Support Program back in March, but were only officially marked as dead over the weekend.

The .ummah application was voluntarily withdrawn by Ummah Digital, while the applicant for .idn (an Indian company called NameShop) unsuccessfully fought the decision.

Nevertheless, NameShop has now been flagged on ICANN’s site with “Did not meet all criteria” for the Applicant Support Program.

We’re taking this as a signal it’s been officially kicked out of the current application round and have updated the DI PRO database accordingly.

As well as failing applicant support, NameShop would have failed the Geographic Names component of its Initial Evaluation because IDN is the reserved three-letter country code for Indonesia.

NameShop had attempted to change its application from .idn to .internet — something that would no doubt have cause a deal of consternation among potential objectors and other applicants.

By flunking the company on the applicant support criteria, ICANN has luckily avoided having to make that difficult call.

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Tagged: .internet, .ummah, applicant support, ICANN, idn, nameshop, new gTLDs, ummah digital