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Amazon snubs ICANN auction to win .coupon privately

Kevin Murphy, June 13, 2014, 05:47:52 (UTC), Domain Registries

Amazon has won the new gTLD .coupon, after Minds + Machines withdrew its application this week.
I understand that the two-way contention set was settled privately via a third party intermediary, possibly via some kind of auction, with M+M ultimately being paid off to withdraw its bid.
.coupon was the only ICANN-managed “auction of last resort” scheduled for July, following the $600,000 sale of .信息 last week.
The next batch of ICANN auctions is now not due to happen until August, unless of course ICANN rejigs its schedule in light of the .coupon settlement.
It’s not clear why Amazon has suddenly decided it prefers the idea of a private commercial settlement after all, but it appears to be good news for M+M, which will see the majority of the cash.
However, it could be related to the fact that .coupon, and dozens of other Amazon new gTLD applications, recently made the switch from being “closed generics” to more inclusive proposals.
Amazon had originally intended that itself and its subsidiaries would be the “only eligible registrants” for .coupon, but in March it changed the application, among many others.
Now, Amazon talks in vague terms about .coupon names being available to “eligible trusted third parties”, a term that doesn’t seem ready to define before the TLDs are actually delegated.
It seems to me, from Amazon’s revised applications, that .coupon and its other gTLDs will be locked down tight enough that they could wind up being effectively closed generics after all.
When Amazon publishes its first eligibility requirements document with ICANN, I expect members of the Governmental Advisory Committee will be watching closely.

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Comments (1)

  1. Tom G says:
    June 16, 2014 at 3:48 am

    This is kind of big news, Amazon is willing to deal for tlds. But what does it mean?
    “We will require registrars to work with us on a four-step registration process featuring: (i) Eligibility Confirmation; (ii) Naming Convention Check; (iii) Acceptable Use Review; and (iv) Registration. As stated in our answer to Question 18, all domains in our registry will be subject to eligibility requirements”.
    Definitely seems they want a tight hold on the reigns. I don’t expect we’ll know more details soon. I don’t think they are in a hurry to get contracts signed, lots more contention sets to settle before revealing their plans. I would love to know what the settlement amount was which would indicate how aggressive they plan to be in pursuing their other applied for strings.
    We know now that their presently dead .amazon application didn’t kill their desire to participate in the program. But, will that participation mean effectively closing the other strings? Who knows, maybe they can still reach an agreement with the governments on .amazon.
    But, they’re committed to be in the process and what they decide to do will probably have a big impact on the overall program.
    Fingers crossed.

    Reply

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