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- Over 6,000 Brexit domains snapped up after mass delete
- Verisign saw MASSIVE query spike during Facebook outage
- .xxx shows up in botnet top-five TLDs for the first time
- ICANN splits $9 million new gTLD ODP into nine tracks
- “We fell short” — Tucows says sorry for Enom downtime
- Crain named ICANN CTO
- Bank spends $800,000 to move from a .bank to the exact-match .com
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- BMW porn site leads to registrar getting suspended
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- ICANN trying to strangle SSAD in the crib?
- ICANN trying to water down its transparency obligations
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- Monte Cahn revealed as third new gTLD buyer
- “National security” cited as registry says you have to ask its CEO if you want to register more than TWO domains
- Whois reform to take four years, cost up to $107 million A YEAR, and may still be pointless
- New year, new server, new functionality
- ICANN is blocking 23 gTLD transfers over blockchain fears
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- Hamburg to have second crack at hosting ICANN meeting
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- Be the next “face” of dot-brands
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- Whois rule changes that nobody likes get approved anyway
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- First UNR gTLD buyer outs itself
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- Big dose of reality for gTLD-hungry dot-brand applicants
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- Facebook rebrand: did one new gTLD or domainer just hit the jackpot?
- .basketball domain emerges under GoDaddy with fewer hoops
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- EURid fends off rivals for .eu contract
- Guy fills exact-match domain with porn, wins UDRP anyway
- Bahrain to relaunch ccTLD globally
- CentralNic says it’s making more money than expected
- Most registrars did NOT “fail” abuse audit, ICANN says
- Surprise eleventh-hour picks for NomCom leadership after ICANN U-turn
- Man with broken shift key sues ICANN and GoDaddy over Bitcoin domain
- Alice’s Registry disappears down the rabbit hole
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- 10 Years Ago… new gTLDs, ICANN pay, DNS abuse and ethics
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- Donuts’ drop-catching service not anti-competitive, ICANN says
- Almost no security researchers asking for Whois records – Tucows
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- CentralNic spends $6.5 million on traffic network
- Nothing but losses ahead for MMX
- Afilias appeals .web ruling, Verisign responds with “rigging” claims
- ICANN won’t vote on new gTLDs for another year
- ICANN now has half a billion bucks in the bank after huge pandemic profits
- Dead dot-brands top 100. Here’s the list and breakdown
- I had a stroke
- Volkswagen drives IDN dot-brand off a cliff
- CTO Conrad quits ICANN
- France gets more domain takedown powers
- MMX to return GoDaddy cash to investors
- Could registrars get sued under new Texas abortion law?
- DropCatch raises antitrust concerns about Donuts’ Dropzone proposal
- ICANN could get the ball rolling on next new gTLD round this weekend
- Domain industry SHRINKS again… except of course it doesn’t
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- Latest geo-gTLD goes to sunrise
- NameSilo says it’s growing too fast to be acquired
- Most registrars fail ICANN abuse audit
- More privacy headaches? UK to withdraw from GDPR
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- Second-level .au names coming next March with tight deadline
- ICANN director picks for 2021 revealed
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- ICANN spills beans on Marby’s million-dollar payday
- ICANN 73 will be “virtual first”
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Most new gTLDs could be closed shops
ICANN’s new generic top-level domain program could create almost 900 closed, single-user namespaces, according to DI PRO’s preliminary analysis.
Surveying all 1,930 new gTLD applications, we’ve found that 912 – about 47% – can be classified as “single registrant” bids, in which the registry would tightly control the second level.
Single-registrant gTLDs are exempt from the Registry Code of Conduct, which obliges registries to offer their strings equally to the full ICANN-accredited registrar channel.
The applications include those for dot-brand strings that match famous trademarks, as well as attempts by applicants such as Amazon and Google to secure generic terms for their own use.
Our definition of “single registrant” includes cases where the applicant has indicated a willingness to lightly share second-level domains with its close affiliates and partners.
It also includes applications such as those for .gov-style zones in non-US jurisdictions, where domains would be available to multiple agencies under the same government umbrella.
But it does not include gTLD applications that would merely require registrants to provide credentials, be a member, or agree to certain restrictions in order to register a domain.
Since there’s been a lot of discussion this last week about whether the single-registrant model adds value to the internet, I thought I’d try to measure the likely scale of the “problem” when it comes to eventual delegation into the DNS root zone.
How many closed registries could we see?
According to the DI PRO database, of the 912 single-registrant applications, 132 are in contention sets. There are 101 contention sets with at least one such applicant.
Some are up against regular multiple-registrant applications (both open and restricted gTLDs), whilst others are only fighting it out with other single-registrant applicants.
Let’s look at a couple of hypothetical scenarios.
Scenario One – Single-Registrant Applicants Win Everything
First, let’s assume that each and every applicant passes their evaluations, does not drop out, and there are no successful objections.
Then let’s imagine that every contention set containing at least one single-registrant bidder is won by one of those single-registrant bidders.
According to my calculations, that would eliminate 31 single-registrant applications and 226 multiple-registrant applications from the pool.
Another 264 multiple-registrant gTLD applications would be eliminated in normal contention.
That would leave us with 881 single-registrant gTLDs and 528 regular gTLDs in the root.
Scenario Two – Single-Registrant Applicants Lose Everything
Again, let’s assume that everybody passes their evaluations and there are no objections or withdrawals.
But this time let’s imagine that every single-registrant applicant in a contention set with at least one multiple-registrant bidder loses. This is the opposite of our first scenario.
According to my calculations, that would eliminate 117 single-registrant applications and 140 multiple-registrant applications.
Again, normal contention would take care of another 264 multiple-registrant applications.
That would leave us with 795 single-registrant gTLDs in the root and 614 others.
In both of these scenarios, at either extreme of the possible contention outcomes, single-registrant gTLDs are in the comfortable majority of delegated gTLDs.
Of course, there’s no telling how many applications of all types will choose to withdraw, fail their evaluations, or be objected out of the game, so the numbers could change considerably.
As another disclaimer: this is all based on our preliminary analysis of the applications, subject to a margin of error and possible changes in future as we refine our categorization algorithms.
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