Latest news of the domain name industry

Recent Posts

Donuts applies for 307 (yes, 307) gTLDs

Kevin Murphy, June 5, 2012, 13:52:17 (UTC), Domain Registries

Donuts Inc has finally showed its hand.
The company, which was set up as a portfolio gTLD player by domain industry veterans Paul Stahura, Richard Tindal, Jonathon Nevett and Daniel Schindler, is applying for 307 gTLDs.
Yes, 307. That’s roughly 15% of all the applications ICANN has received.
We were all expecting big plans from Donuts, but I’m not sure many people thought it would go for so many strings.
The company has raised $100 million from Austin Ventures, Adams Street Partners, Emergence Capital Partners, TL Ventures, Generation Partners and Stahurricane to fund the ambitious plans.
Demand Media has been chosen to provide the back-end registry.
Donuts has also staffed up with some familiar faces. Former ICANN CFO Kevin Wilson is its new CFO, former Oversee marketing chief Mason Cole has joined as vice president of communications and industry relations.
The company says it has created almost two dozen new rights protection mechanisms for its gTLDs, but that it has an “open internet” philosophy.
“We have resources set aside for handling objections by parties who, for whatever reason, believe only they are equipped to administer a generic term,” Stahura said in a press release.
“The Internet is an engine of information, ideas and commerce, and one that’s not restrictive unnecessarily. Donuts intends to preserve that openness for all users, not operate a ‘by invitation only’ section of the Internet.”
I’m guessing this means there’s going to be fireworks in contention sets such as, say, .music.
The full list of applied-for strings doesn’t seem to be available yet.


If you find this post or this blog useful or interestjng, please support Domain Incite, the independent source of news, analysis and opinion for the domain name industry and ICANN community.

Tagged: , ,

Comments (6)

  1. Tim says:

    Why stop at 307, they could have just gone for 500 and got their own batch…

  2. Tom G says:

    Wow, just Wow.
    I better get busy.

  3. Wonder if we are going to see more surprises on June, 13th….

  4. Sue says:

    Is the full list of strings that Donuts applied for available yet?

    • Rubens Kuhl says:

      You have to sort them out on the ICANN website because they applied with a lot of shell companies. Look for @donuts.co e-mails as contact.

Add Your Comment