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Two more gTLD bids kicked out of the program, but .kids gets ICANN funding

Kevin Murphy, March 12, 2013, 18:26:50 (UTC), Domain Services

Two more applications have been rejected from the new gTLD program, after they tried and failed to have their application fees subsidized by ICANN’s Applicant Support Program.
Three gTLDs were submitted for financial assistance, but ICANN’s Support Application Review Panel, delivering its results (pdf) today, decided that only one of them qualified for a cheapo bid.
DotKids Foundation Ltd, which is applying for .kids, is the lucky recipient of $138,000 worth of waived application fees. Its application now enters Initial Evaluation.
The applicants for .ummah (Ummah Digital Ltd) and .idn (NameShop), on the other hand, have been given a refund of the $47,000 application fee they paid and politely shown the door.
ICANN said: “applications that did not meet the threshold criteria for financial assistance will be excluded from further participation in this round of the New gTLD Program”.
That rule was introduced to prevent gaming — companies that asked for cheaper applications risked losing their applications if they failed to meet the requirements for support.
It doesn’t mean there was anything wrong with their gTLD applications, however.
The approval of funding for the DotKids Foundation is goodish news for people uncomfortable with Amazon’s closed gTLD land-grab — the retailer is the only other applicant for .kids.
While the .kids contention set remains, is pretty safe to say that Amazon will be able to utterly crucify its competition if the TLD goes to auction.



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Comments (3)

  1. Do Bibbley says:

    “While the .kids contention set remains, is pretty safe to say that Amazon will be able to utterly crucify its competition if the TLD goes to auction.”
    Imagine that DotKids Foundation are crossing their fingers that they can pass CPE…
    Wonder if there will be a String Confusion Objection to try to bring Google’s .KID application into that conention set too?

  2. Rubens Kuhl says:

    .idn was toast since the beginning; no company formed to apply, geo string etc.
    .ummah on the other hand didn’t raise any eyebrows after a reading of the public part… I hope this dismissal is based on the private financial information, not on the risk of opposition from arab countries and organizations.

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