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NameJet and Afternic sign another gTLD launch

Kevin Murphy, April 3, 2013, 14:50:45 (UTC), Domain Services

NameJet and Afternic will provide launch auctions and premium name distribution for the .build gTLD, should it be approved, the two companies have announced.
The deal was inked with applicant Plan Bee LLC, which is affiliated with Minardos Group, a construction company.
The two companies will handle auctions under the sunrise and landrush phases, according to a press release.
It’s the second such deal to be announced by the Afternic/Namejet partnership to date, after WhatBox’s .menu. The companies are also working with Directi’s .pw registry.
Plan Bee has also applied for .expert and .construction, but these are both contested so there’s less certainty that they’ll end up approved.
The applicant reckons it will be able to bring .build to market in the fourth quarter of this year.
With a prioritization number of 1,049 in ICANN’s queue, this may prove optimistic, depending on how the remaining portions of the program — such as predelegation testing and contracting — pan out.


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Comments (3)

  1. Andrew says:

    “With a prioritization number of 1,049 in ICANN’s queue, this may prove optimistic”
    Wouldn’t it be “impossible”, if ICANN sticks to its planned delegation rate? It would be more than a year from the first delegation.

    • Kevin Murphy says:

      You’re referring to the “1,000 per year max” thing?
      That would only kick in if 1,000 TLDs were delegated before it. With contention, objections, etc, that’s unlikely to be the case.
      Excluding contested TLDs, .build’s effective queue number is 657.

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