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Final GTFO warning for 19 failed new gTLD bids

Kevin Murphy, September 29, 2025, 12:27:38 (UTC), Domain Policy

ICANN is to give eviction notices to the applicants behind 19 failed new gTLD applications from the 2012 round, including Google, Amazon and Identity Digital. The affected strings include .hotel, .shop and .islam.

Fifteen companies are to be told to withdraw their applications within 90 days or forfeit their right to a partial refund of their application fees, under a Termination Procedure approved by ICANN earlier this month.

The affected applications include those for strings that have since been delegated to other applicants, strings that were rejected due to objections from governments, and those that failed because of clashes with ICANN rules.

They also include .corp, .mail and .home, applied for by Google, Amazon, and GMO Registry, which have been banned due to the high risk of name collisions with commonly used behind-the-firewall namespaces.

Eight further applications — for .webs, .web and .gcc — are deemed to have failed but will not immediately get their 90-day warning because they are still involved in legal proceedings.

The absolute minimum amount of refunds at stake here is $703,000 — 20% of the original fees — which would remain in ICANN’s coffers if it remains unclaimed after the deadline.


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