Is the ICC ripping off new gTLD objectors?

New gTLD applicants have reportedly complained to ICANN about the unexpectedly high cost of dealing with objections.
The International Chamber of Commerce has apparently been quoting objectors prices as high as €150,000 for a three-person panel to handle a formal community objection.
At $195,000, that’s almost $10,000 more than the original ICANN application fee.
Because Community Objections run on a loser-pays basis, the stakes are high indeed. An applicant could lose its application, most of its application fee, and still have to pay the objector’s fees.
The complaints emerged during a session with ICANN new gTLD program head Christine Willett at a meeting in Brussels earlier this week, according to consultant and occasional DI contributor Stephane Van Gelder.
Writing on the NetNames blog yesterday, Van Gelder quoted Willett as saying:

We are aware that ICC fees are more than people were expecting. Some applicants have been quoted around 50,000 Euros for a one expert panel and 150,000 Euros for a three expert panel. Although in the same order of magnitude as the cost estimate listed in the applicant guidebook, they are still higher. In some cases, significantly higher. In fact, we had one applicant write to us last week saying that their quoted expert fee was more than the ICANN fees for submitting their application in the first place! So we have reached out to ICC and are hoping they can provide some rationale for the costs they are quoting.

The Applicant Guidebook does not detail the fees charged by dispute resolution providers, but materials provided by the ICC (pdf) say that its admin costs are €12,000 and €17,000 for a one-person and three-person panel respectively. The hourly rate for the panelists is €450, it says.
With a €150,000 total cost, back of the envelope doodling suggests that each panelist expects to spend around 100 hours working on each case — over two weeks at seven hours a day.
By contrast, the World Intellectual Property Organization’s fees for handling Legal Rights Objections with a three-person panel start at $23,000 ($3,000 for WIPO, $20,000 for the panelists).

4 Comments Tagged: community, ICANN, icc, new gTLDs, objections

Rejected .gay gTLD objection ruled “unfair”

dotgay LLC could be hit by another formal new gTLD objection from gay Republicans.
ICANN Ombudsman Chris LaHatte today said that it was “unfair” that a community objection filed by GOProud, a gay lobby group, was rejected by the International Chamber of Commerce.
The ICC screwed up, it seems, judging by LaHatte’s decision.
Washington DC-based GOProud, which seeks to show that not all gay rights advocates have liberal views on other issues, had filed a community-based objection to dotgay’s .gay gTLD application.
While the substance of the objection is not known, I suspect it’s politically motivated. The other objection to dotgay’s application was filed by another gay Republican organization, the Metroplex Republicans of Dallas (formerly Log Cabin Republicans Dallas).
The ICC rejected the objection because it was about 500 words over the prescribed limit, but it sent the notification to the wrong email address, according to LaHatte’s blog.
Had GOProud received the notification, it would have had time to amend its objection to rectify the mistake. However, by the time it discovered the problem the filing deadline had passed.
LaHatte wrote:

there is some unfairness in the subsequent rejection given the apparent error in the use of the wrong email. It seems to me that it would be relatively easy to unwind that decision, and permit the late filing of the objection. I can of course only make a recommendation, but in this case where there is some unfairness I think the matter should be revisited.

The Ombudsman’s role is to handle complaints about unfairness in ICANN’s actions, so it’s not entirely clear what’s going to happen in this case, given that the ICC is an ICANN subcontractor.
LaHatte’s recommendation is certainly not binding in either case. Whether the ICC changes its mind may depend on whether ICANN asks it to or not.
dotgay is the New York-based applicant founded by Scott Seitz. It’s one of four companies applying for .gay.
The other three applicants — Top Level Domain Holdings, Top Level Design and Demand Media — have each received community objections from the International Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans and Intersex Association, a dotgay supporter.

Comment Tagged: .gay, community, dotgay, goproud, ICANN, icc, international chamber of commerce, new gTLDs, objections, Ombudsman

Afternic picked to handle .buzz premium names

Afternic and NameJet have been selected by the applicant for .buzz, dotStrategy, to manage premium domain name allocation in the new gTLD.
Afternic will build the .buzz reserved names list and sell them through its marketplace, while NameJet will exclusively handle sunrise, landrush and premium name auctions, the company said in a press release.
Arkansas-based dotStrategy, which is also in a contention set for .fun, thinks .buzz will be a memorable gTLD for marketing campaigns, among other purposes.
Its .buzz application has already passed Initial Evaluation with ICANN, is uncontested and has no objections or GAC worries. The company reckons it could go to sunrise by October.

2 Comments Tagged: .buzz, afternic, dotstrategy, namejet, namemedia, new gTLDs

TLDH and Famous Four ink new gTLD revenue sharing deal

New gTLD portfolio applicants Top Level Domain Holdings and Famous Four Media did in fact make a deal to resolve three contention sets, as suspected.
TLDH has just confirmed that it withdrew its applications for .science and .review in exchange for Famous Four withdrawing its application for .fit.
But the deal also includes a revenue-sharing component — TLDH will get a cut of whatever revenue Famous Four makes selling .review domain names after it goes live.
All three of the gTLDs in question were in two-way contention sets between the two companies, as we reported yesterday.
TLDH gave the following update:

TLDH now has interests in 23 uncontested applications, including 15 wholly/majority owned applications, 6 where it is acting as the registry service provider for client applications, 1 equal joint venture, and 1 where it will receive a minority revenue share. Of the remaining 63 applications which TLDH either wholly-owns, is a joint-venture partner, or is acting as the registry service provider, 7 are in contention with a single other applicant, 17 with two other applicants and 39 are in contention with three or more applicants.

While the dollar amounts concerned were not disclosed, I can’t help but feel TLDH got a good deal with .review.
For the cost of an ICANN application fee*, much of which was recouped in refunds, it seems to be getting an ongoing revenue stream with no ongoing costs and little future risk.
* Of course, in TLDH’s case it has also been burning cash for the best part of five years waiting for new gTLDs to come to life, but you get the point.

2 Comments Tagged: .fit, .review, .science, Famous Four Media, ICANN, new gTLDs, tldh, top level domain holdings

Tweets from Chehade’s keynote in Brussels today

ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade gave a keynote address at a meeting of European stakeholders in Brussels today.
While the meeting is evidently not accessible remotely, some interesting tweets and photos may give a flavor of the event and his remarks. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the quotes.

#icann ceo giving keynote at Brussels meeting right now. pic.twitter.com/l7idKI5WxR

— Stephane Van Gelder (@stephvg) June 25, 2013

Fadi Chehadé at #ICANN #Brussels briefing: we need to birth new TLDs by the autumn, they are cutting oxygen from ICANN & making ICANN sick

— Caroline Greer (@CarolineGreer) June 25, 2013

Fadi Chehade at #ICANN CENTR meeting: "New #gTLD Registries are our licensees: our clients are registrants".

— StartingDot (@StartingDot) June 25, 2013

#icann Brussels briefing Fadi addressing The european stakeholders pic.twitter.com/Wjei3vlvxU

— Andrea Beccalli (@becktweet) June 25, 2013

F Chehadé: Europe can play a unique, moderating role in #InternetGovernance, standing between extreme national positions #ICANN

— Caroline Greer (@CarolineGreer) June 25, 2013

Fadi Chehadé: "There is no way one government, not even the US, can control the Internet" #ICANN Briefing Brussels

— Ana Olmos (@anaolmos) June 25, 2013

"We are committed to getting #newgtlds out by this fall!" Fadi Chehadé #icann CEO today in Brussels.

— Stephane Van Gelder (@stephvg) June 25, 2013

Fadi Chehadé: "Registrants are #ICANN's customers; not registrars, not registries" –> Focus on #users

— Ana Olmos (@anaolmos) June 25, 2013

8 Comments Tagged: ICANN, new gTLDs

Whois headed for the scrap heap in “paradigm shift”

Whois’ days are numbered.
An “Expert Working Group” assembled by ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade has proposed that the old Whois service we all love to hate be scrapped entirely and replaced with something (possibly) better.
After several months of deliberations the EWG today issued an audacious set of preliminary recommendations that would completely overhaul the current system.
Registrants’ privacy might be better protected under the new model, and parties accessing Whois data would for the first time have obligations to use it responsibly.
There’d also be a greater degree of data validation than we have with today’s Whois, which may appease law enforcement and intellectual property interests.
The new concept may also reduce costs for registries and registrars by eliminating existing Whois service obligations.
The EWG said in its report:

After working through a broad array of use cases, and the myriad of issues they raised, the EWG concluded that today’s WHOIS model—giving every user the same anonymous public access to (too often inaccurate) gTLD registration data—should be abandoned.
Instead, the EWG recommends a paradigm shift whereby gTLD registration data is collected, validated and disclosed for permissible purposes only, with some data elements being accessible only to authenticated requestors that are then held accountable for appropriate use.

The acronym being proposed is ARDS, for Aggregated Registration Data Services.
For the first time, gTLD registrant data would be centralized and maintained by a single authority — likely a company contracted by ICANN — instead of today’s mish-mash of registries and registrars.
The ARDS provider would store frequently cached copies of Whois records provided by registries and registrars, and would be responsible for validating it and handling accuracy complaints.
To do a Whois look-up, you’d need access credentials for the ARDS database. It seems likely that different levels of access would be available depending on the user’s role.
Law enforcement could get no-holds-barred access, for example, while regular internet users might not be able to see home addresses (my example, not the EWG’s).
Credentialing users may go some way to preventing Whois-related spam.
A centralized service would also provide users with a single, more reliable and uniform, source of registrant data.
Registrars and registries would no longer have to provide Whois over port 43 or the web, potentially realizing cost savings as a result, the EWG said.
For those concerned about privacy, the EWG proposes two levels of protection:

• An Enhanced Protected Registration Service for general personal data privacy needs; and
• A Maximum Protected Registration Service that offers Secured Protected Credentials Service for At-Risk, Free-Speech uses.

If I understand the latter category correctly, the level privacy protection could even trump requests for registrant data from law enforcement. This could be critical in cases of, for example, anti-governmental speech in repressive regimes.
The proposed model would not necessarily kill off existing privacy/proxy services, but such services would come under a greater degree of ICANN regulation than they are today.
It appears that there’s a lot to like about the EWG’s concepts, regardless of your role.
It is very complex, however. The devil, as always, will be in the details. ARDS is going to need a lot of careful consideration to get right.
But it’s a thought-provoking breakthrough in the age-old Whois debate, all the more remarkable for being thrown together, apparently through a consensus of group members, in such a short space of time.
The EWG’s very existence is somewhat controversial; some say it’s an example of Chehade trying to circumvent standard procedures. But it so far carries no official weight in the ICANN policy-making process.
Its initial report is currently open for public comment either via email direct to the group or planned webinars. After it is finalized it will be submitted to the ICANN board of directors.
The board would then thrown the recommendations at the Generic Names Supporting Organization for a formal Policy Development Process, which would create a consensus policy applicable to all registries and registrars.
With all that in mind, it’s likely to be a few years before (and if) the new model becomes a reality.

11 Comments Tagged: aggregated registration data service, ards, expert working group, ICANN, whois

Famous Four wins two new gTLD contention sets

Four new gTLD applications were withdrawn overnight, resolving three contention sets.
Top Level Domain holdings has pulled its bids for .review and .science, in both cases leaving subsidiaries of portfolio applicant Famous Four Media as the only remaining applicant.
Meanwhile, Famous Four withdrew its .fit application, leaving TLDH as the only remaining applicant.
Buyouts? It seems possible. The .review application passed its Initial Evaluation a month ago, so the ICANN refund due to TLDH will have been dramatically reduced.
As a publicly traded company, TLDH is likely to issue a statement at some point explaining the current state of its applications.
But one of the side effects of ICANN’s preference for private deals is that we won’t always know when two or more companies privately resolve their contention sets.
There are at least two other contention sets where I have very good reasons to believe that deals have already been done, partially resolving the set, but nothing has yet been disclosed.
Also overnight, L’Oreal’s application for .garnier, a dot-brand, was withdrawn. It’s the fifth, and probably not the last, of L’Oreal’s 14 original new gTLD application to be dropped.
Governmental Advisory Committee advice has been leveled against .fit and .review, but not .science.
UPDATE: The original version of this story erroneously reported that TLDH, rather than Famous Four, had withdrawn its .fit application. This has now been corrected. Apologies for the error.

3 Comments Tagged: .fit, .garnier, .review, .science, Famous Four Media, ICANN, new gTLDs, tldh, top level domain holdings

US and EU could be victims of ICANN power shift

Europe and North America could see an influx of new nations under changes to the way ICANN defines geographic regions, potentially diluting the influence of EU states and the USA.
Europe could soon be joined by several Middle Eastern countries, while North America could be expanded to encapsulate Caribbean nations.
The changes, which would alter the composition of key ICANN decision-making bodies, could come as a result of the Geographic Regions Review Working Group, which delivered a draft final set of recommendations over the weekend, after four years of deliberations.
Among its conclusions, the WG found that there are “anomalies” in how ICANN handles regions and that countries should have the right to move to a different region if they choose.
ICANN has long divided the world into five regions (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean) along unique and sometimes unusual lines.
The regions are used to ensure diversity in the make-up of its board of directors, among other things. ICANN’s bylaws state that no region may have more than five directors on the board.
The working group was tasked with figuring out whether the current geographic regions made sense, whether there should more or fewer regions, and whether some countries should change regions.
ICANN’s regions as they stand today have some weirdness.
Cyprus, for example, is categorized as being in Asia-Pacific, despite it floating in the Mediterranean, being a member of the European Union and largely speaking Greek.
Mexico and most Caribbean islands are in Latin America, as far as ICANN is concerned, leaving the US, Canada and US overseas territories as the North American region’s only eight members.
Then there are anomalies relating to “mother countries”. The Falkland Islands, for example, is physically found in the Latin American region but is classified as European by ICANN because it’s a British territory.
Under changes proposed by the working group, many of these anomalies could slowly shake themselves out.
But the working group decided against forcing nations from one region into another (with an opt-out) as had been proposed in 2011. Instead, countries could choose to change regions.
This is the key recommendation:

The Working Group recommends that the Board direct Staff to prepare and maintain ICANN’s own unique organizational table that clearly shows the allocation of countries and territories (as defined by ISO 3166) to its existing five Geographic Regions. The initial allocation should reflect the status quo of the current assignments. However, Staff should also develop and implement a process to permit stakeholder communities in countries or territories to pursue, if they wish, re-assignment to a geographic region that they consider to be more appropriate for their jurisdiction.

While this looks like a free-for-all — there doesn’t seem to be anything stopping France moving to Africa, for example — in practice the working group seems to be expecting certain shifts.
For example, some Middle Eastern nations had expressed an interest in moving from Asia-Pacific to Europe, while some Caribbean island states apparently feel more aligned with North America.
Assuming the recommendations are taken on board and regional switches are approved on a case-by-case basis, both North America and Europe could soon swell to include new countries.
The working group’s recommendations would avoid the seismic shifts previously envisaged, however.
There will be no separate region for Arab states, which had been requested. Nor will there be any forced move of territories into regions different from their mother countries (which would have proved politically difficult in the case of disputed land masses such as the Falklands).
While the report is being called “final” it has been presented for public review until October, after which it will be formally sent to ICANN’s board.

Comment Tagged: geographic regions, ICANN

New .org contract could make registrars sign up to 2013 RAA

Registrars risk losing their right to sell .org domain names unless they sign up to the new 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement.
The change is among several proposed to Public Interest Registry’s .org Registry Agreement with ICANN, which was published for public comment over the weekend.
Amendments to the .org RA, which came to the end of its six-year term in April, are very similar to those put forward for the .info and .biz contracts last month.
But .org is a far larger and more popular TLD, putting more pressure on more registrars to sign up to the 2013 RAA, with its new Whois verification and privacy service obligations.
For registrars on the 2009 and 2001 RAAs, the clock would start ticking the day that registrars representing two thirds of all .org registrations sign the 2013 RAA.
That threshold could be met in .org if the top eight or nine registrars make the switch.
PIR would then get 60 days to tell its remaining registrars that they have 270 days to move to the new RAA. Any registrar that failed to adopt it in that time would lose its right to sell .org domain names.
As with the .info and .biz contracts, the provisions related to the 2013 RAA would only kick in if Verisign asks for the same changes for its .com and .net agreements, which may never happen.
Other changes proposed for the .org contract include:

• Cross-ownership restrictions. PIR will be able to own a registrar under the new deal, lifting the long-standing ban on gTLD registries selling domains in their own TLD.
• Price increases. PIR will be able to raise its .org registry fee by 10% per year, from its current level of $8.25.
• Code of Conduct. PIR will have to abide by the same registry Code of Conduct as new gTLD operators, which contains provisions mainly related to equal registrar access.

The propose .org contract is open for public comment until August 12.

Comment Tagged: .org, 2013 raa, ICANN, public interest registry, registry agreement, vertical integration

ICANN has 99 gTLD passes but .payu ain’t one

ICANN has delivered another 100 new gTLD Initial Evaluation results this evening, with 99 passes and one failure.
The failure is the application for .payu, a dot-brand filed by a Dutch e-payments company. It’s eligible for extended evaluation, having scored a 0 on its “financial statements” question.
These are the successful applications, many of which are receiving their results well after their original due dates:

.dnp .otsuka .okinawa .media .extraspace .tickets .bradesco .mtpc .infiniti .ooo .lilly .everbank .mom .latrobe .maif .town .free .tube .wales .ist .ong .auto .shopyourway .golf .viajes .doosan .tatar .yoga .mail .chk .pru .one .medical .limo .ovh .storage .infy .desi .secure .domains .computer .racing .zara .target .pictet .music .nba .bank .goodhands .ing .sling .meme .giving .jewelry .deals .nadex .credit .one .here .luxury .cern .salon .ninja .zip .vana .lancome .tires .recipes .film .teva .auto .istanbul .grocery .web .diet .baby .support .hotel .infosys .lol .beats .vons .moscow .inc .guge .car .forsale .hsbc .energy .man .team .book .family .green .aetna .movie .politie .home .group

There are now 819 passes, 9 failures and 1,019 applications still in Initial Evaluation. Next week, we’ll pass the halfway mark, with IE due to be completed in August.

3 Comments Tagged: ICANN, initial evaluation, new gTLDs