Millions of new gTLD domains to be released as collision blocks end
Millions of new gTLD domain names are set to start being released, as ICANN-mandated name collision blocks start getting lifted.
Starting yesterday, domains that have been blocked from registration due to name collisions can now be released by the registries.
About 95,000 names in gTLDs such as .nyc, .tattoo, .webcam and .wang have already ended their mandatory “controlled interruption” period and hundreds of thousands more are expected to be unblocked on a weekly basis over the coming months (and years).
Want to register sex.nyc, poker.bid or garage.capetown? That may soon be possible. Those names, along with hundreds of other non-gibberish domains, are no longer subject to mandatory blocks.
Roughly 45 new gTLDs have ended their CI periods over the last two days. Here are the Latin-script ones:
.bid, .buzz, .cancerresearch, .capetown, .caravan, .cologne, .cymru, .durban, .gent, .jetzt, .joburg, .koeln, .krd, .kred, .lacaixa, .nrw, .nyc, .praxi, .qpon, .quebec, .ren, .ruhr, .saarland, .wang, .webcam, .whoswho, .wtc, .citic, .juegos, .luxury, .menu, .monash, .physio, .reise, .tattoo, .tirol, .versicherung, .vlaanderen and .voting
Another half dozen or so non-Latin script gTLDs have also finished with CI.
There are over 17,500 newly unblocked names in .nyc alone. Over the whole new gTLD program, over 9.8 million name collisions are to be temporarily blocked.
Name collisions are domains in new gTLDs that were already receiving DNS root traffic well before the gTLD was delegated, suggesting that they may be in use on internal networks.
To avoid possible harm from collisions, ICANN forced registries to make these names unavailable for registration and to resolve to the deliberately non-functional and odd-looking IP address 127.0.53.53.
Each affected name had to be treated in this way for 90 days. The first TLDs started implementing CI on August 18, so the first batch of registries ended their programs yesterday.
So, will every domain that was on a registry’s collision list be available to buy right away?
No.
ICANN hasn’t told registries that they must release names as soon as their CI period is over, so it appears to be at the registries’ discretion when the names are released. I gather some intend to do so as soon as today.
Also, any name that was blocked due to a collision and also appears in the Trademark Clearinghouse will have to remain blocked until it has been subject to a Sunrise period.
Some registries, such as Donuts, have already made their collision names available (but not activated in the DNS) under their original Sunrise periods so will be able to release unclaimed names at the same time as all the rest.
Other registries will have to talk to ICANN about a secondary sunrise period, to give trademark holders their first chance to grab the previously blocked names.
Furthermore, domains that the registry planned to reserved as “premiums” will continue to be reserved as premiums.
The collisions list was like the Y2k bug: the byproduct of lazy administrators to allocate full qualifying domains to their intranets.