Donuts signs three more new gTLD contracts

Donuts today signed Registry Agreements covering the new gTLDs .land, .plumbing and .contractors, according to ICANN.
The deals mean ICANN now has contracts covering 40 gTLDs, 22 of them as a result of the new gTLD program and 16 of which are to be managed by Donuts.
Like all the gTLDs Donuts applied for, they’re to be operated with an “open” registration policy.
It’s therefore ironic that the company should become the contracted registry for .plumbing and .contractors — both regulated industries where I come from — on the same day we find out that it can’t have .architect because architecture is a licensed profession.

dotShabaka Diary — Day 9, Unwelcome and Uninformed?

The ninth installment of dotShabaka Registry’s journal, charting its progress towards becoming one of the first new gTLDs to go live, written by general manager Yasmin Omer.

Tuesday 10 September 2013
After responding to ICANN’s COI Clarification Notification of 10 July 2013, including submitting the Letter of Credit and other required documentation, dotShabaka Registry proceeded to the Contracting Phase. The Registry Agreement was executed in Durban a couple of days later.
Now a full two months after our Letter of Credit was submitted to ICANN we received a portal comment that “ICANN requires an original of the Letter of Credit” and we need to respond “as soon as possible to avoid delaying your progress in the post-evaluation process.”
How is this a requirement that we are only now being made aware of? Why the two month wait? Why is the Letter of Credit suddenly on the critical path to delegation for the شبكة. TLD? We are on the other side of the world from Los Angeles and this cannot be completed in a couple of hours.
We are yet to receive ICANN’s ‘Welcome Pack’ for new gTLD Registry Operators. Are other new gTLD Registry Operators at the front-end of the new gTLD program feeling unwelcome and uninformed?
إذا كان الصبر مُرًّا فعاقبته حلوة – If patience is bitter then its result is sweet…

Read previous and future diary entries here.

Angry Birds backing two Chinese-language gTLDs

The Finnish/Irish new gTLD applicant TLD Registry Ltd has signed two ICANN Registry Agreements, covering the Chinese strings .在线 (.online) and .中文网 (a phrase meaning “Chinese language website”).
The deals were signed yesterday, but the news is set to be formally announced in Beijing on Tuesday by the Finnish prime minister, Jyrki Katainen, who’s on a state visit to the country.
He’ll be joined by Peter Vesterbacka, chief marketing officer of Angry Birds maker Rovio Entertainment, which is supporting TLD Registry as the first announced member of its “founders program”.
The two new agreements mean ICANN has now contractual powers over more new gTLDs (19) than legacy ones (18).
TLD Registry CEO Arto Isokoski told DI this morning that 在线 and 中文网 are already extremely well-known and widely-used phrases on the Chinese internet.
“在线” is the direct translation of “online” and “中文网” is what Chinese web users instinctively type when they’re searching for the Chinese-language version of a foreign brand’s web site, he said.
“It surprises me as well that these were not contested,” Isokoski said. “These are the strings that Chinese users type in when they’re looking for web sites online.”
Both TLDs will be open to registrants anywhere in the world, though .中文网 seems to be particularly suited for brands from the ASCII parts of the world, looking to improve SEO in the country.
Isokoski said that the company hopes to take .在线 and .中文网 to market early next year. If the strings are delegated in early November, then general availability could start in mid-January, he said.
Depending on ICANN delays, the launch schedule may have to be moved back to February or March in order to avoid the “dead period” around Chinese New Year, which starts in late January, he said.
The most directly competitive gTLD would be .网址, an arguably superior string meaning roughly “website”, which is now out of contention and likely to sign its own contract soon.
Two other Chinese gTLDs, both owned by Donuts, have ICANN contracts already — .游戏 (games) and .企业 (business).
Isokoski said that TLD Registry hopes to have about 20 members of its founders program (included Rovio, which is Finnish but makes games wildly popular in China) and about 20 launch registrars.
Like other IDN gTLD registries, the company is hoping that its first-to-market advantage will give its marketing a lift due to the extra media interest.
TLD Registry is based in Ireland, near its back-end provider Afilias, but was founded by Finns. Afilias alum Pinky Brand is managing registrar relationships for the company.

Five gTLDs fail the geo test, but .banque passes IE

Five new gTLD applications failed their Initial Evaluation this week after being ruled “geographic”, according to results just published by ICANN.
The big name failure is Tata Group, the $100 billion-a-year Indian conglomerate, which had its bid for .tata put on hold because (presumably) its name matches the name of a tiny Moroccan province.
TUI AG, a €17.5 billion-a-year Germany-based travel group, also failed to pass the geo test with its bid for .tui, which matches the name of province of Burkina Faso.
Both of these applications were highlighted in our July 2012 article “20 new gTLD applications that think they’re not geographic, but are”.
Guangzhou YU Wei Information Technology failed on geographic grounds with three applications which match the names of Chinese provinces: .深圳, .佛山 and .广州.
Under ICANN rules, if your string matches a name of an administrative region of a country, you need support or a letter of non-objection from that country’s government.
All three applicants now have Extended Evaluation to try again to secure this support.
Also today, Gexban’s application for .banque got a passing IE score. It’s uncontested but has outstanding Governmental Advisory Committee advice standing in the way of contracting with ICANN.
While ICANN formally closed its IE process last week, it’s still mopping up the stragglers. Today, 23 applications remain in Initial Evaluation.

Teething troubles for TMCH testing

With the first new gTLD delegation likely just a matter of weeks away, registries and registrars are reporting problems getting access to the Trademark Clearinghouse for testing purposes.
ICANN launched an OT&E (operational test and evaluation environment) for companies to test their systems against the IBM-run TMCH back-end last week, but few have so far managed to get in.
Some registrars have been denied access because they have not yet signed the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement.
While that’s a prerequisite for selling new gTLD domains, some say it should not also be a barrier to testing their TMCH implementation before they decide to sign on the dotted line.
At least one registrar that has actually signed the 2013 RAA also says it has been denied access.
Meanwhile, several back-end applicants and back-end registry providers have reported that they too have been told they can’t access the OT&E until they’ve signed the 2013 RAA.
Registries are of course not obliged to sign any RAA in order to act as registries.
Others say they’ve received the credentials needed to access the OT&E but that they don’t work.
ICANN has blamed a mix-up in its workflow for the registries getting blocked, something it expects to get fixed quickly. It’s also looking into the complaints from registrars.
The TMCH is the database that registries and registrars will use to validate trademarks during sunrise periods, and to check for possible cybersquatting during the first few months of launch.

.xxx sales spike 1,000% during discount

ICM Registry saw an over 1,000% spike in .xxx domain name registrations in May, during which it offered new registrations at a steep discount over its regular price.
The numbers were still relatively small. The registry saw 13,136 adds during the period, compared to 1,131 in April and 1,836 in May 2012, according to ICANN reports published today.
Average add-years rose sequentially from 1.34 to 1.88 (compared to a gTLD industry average of 1.23), according to TLD Health Check, with total add-years up over 1,500% to 24,663.

For the whole of May, ICM offered .xxx domains — which usually carry a registry fee of $62 — for the same price as .com domains. The promotion applied to any length of registration, from one to 10 years.
There were 747 10-year registrations in May. A small number, but exactly 100 more than ICM saw during its first month of general availability in December 2011. There were similar numbers of three and five-year sales, and over 1,100 two-year registrations.
The company ended the month with 120,409 domains under management.

Public Suffix List to get monthly new gTLD updates

New gTLDs are set to be added to the widely used Public Suffix List within a month of signing an ICANN registry agreement, according to PSL volunteer Jothan Frakes.
This is pretty good news for new gTLD registries.
The PSL, maintained by volunteers under the Mozilla banner, is used in browsers including Firefox and Chrome, and will be a vital part of making sure new gTLDs “work” out of the box.
If a TLD doesn’t have an entry on the PSL, browsers tend to handle them badly.
For example, after .sx launched last year, Google’s Chrome browser returned search results instead of the intended web site when .sx domain names were typed into the address/search bar.
It also provides a critical security function, telling browsers at which level they should allow domains to set cookies.
According to Frakes, who has been working behind the scenes with other PSL volunteers and ICANN staff to get this process working, new gTLDs will usually hit the PSL within 30 days of an ICANN contract.
Due to the mandatory pre-delegation testing period, new gTLDs should be on the PSL before or at roughly the same time as they are delegated, with plenty of time to spare before they launch.
The process of being added to the PSL should be fairly quick for TLDs that intend to run flat second-level spaces, according to Frakes, but may be more complex if they plan to do something less standard, such as selling third-level domains, for example.
Browser makers may take some time to update their own lists with the PSL updates. Google, with its own huge portfolio of applications, will presumably be incentivized to stay on the ball.

CentralNic raises $10 million in IPO

New gTLD registry back-end provider CentralNic raised a reported £7 million ($10 million) on its London Alternative Investment Market debut yesterday.
The IPO, which netted £5 million for the company and £2 million for existing shareholders, valued the company at £32.5 million ($50.6 million).
Its float price was 55p per share, but it’s trading at 66p right now.
CentralNic had previously said that it intends to use the money to expand its new gTLD business and to explore opportunities to provide back-end services for ccTLDs.
The company runs .la, has contracts to run 53 gTLDs, and sells subdomains under numerous pseudo-gTLDs such as uk.com and us.com.

Only 29 gTLD applications still in IE as 101 pass and nine fail

ICANN has published what was scheduled to be its final week of Initial Evaluation results for new gTLD applications.
It was a bumper week for results as evaluators mopped up stragglers that had previously been asked to provide more information via Clarifying Questions. There were 101 passes and 9 failures.
There are still 29 applications without published results. An ICANN spokesperson said that the results for these will continue to be delivered on a weekly basis as usual until all are done.
One hundred and one applications passed. These ones:

.origins .free .banamex .sex .dog .prof .rockwool .weather .farmers .itv .ford .hkt .inc .phd .blog .kid .esq .memorial .ira .art .gmbh .pccw .music .citi .bms .live .game .news .kone .shop .able .llc .frontier .flir .watches .tires .love .dds .ericsson .dunlop .volvo .fujitsu .telecity .movie .fidelity .mutuelle .stockholm .xperia .search .lupin .med .jewelry .kddi .tires .monster .news .lincoln .book .tube .mint .clinique .buy .goodyear .lego .seven .fresenius .richardli .llp .csc .ses .ftr .ikano .gallup .saxo .mutualfunds .baby .progressive .firestone .corp .music .movie .srl .retirement .seat .mba .pars .islam .nowruz .boston .persiangulf .tci .design .rip .sucks .shia .ally .style .halal .hotel .lifeinsurance .shriram

The failures, which are all “Eligible for Extended Evaluation” are:

• .livestrong (Lance Armstrong Foundation) — failed on both financial and technical questions. The first I recall seeing to be pushed into EE based on its proposed Registry Services. Also failed a drug test.
• .unicorn — Scored only 5 out of the required 22 points on its technical evaluation, easily the worst score I can recall seeing. Its back end provider is Gransy sro, a Czech-based registrar.
• .home (Dothome Ltd) — this is the .home bid Defender Security bought from CGR E-Commerce. The same one that filed all the Legal Rights Objections against other .home applicants. It failed its financial evaluation, but not because it failed to file its financial statements, which is usually the case.
• .smart (Smart Communications, Inc) — a dot-brand that failed technical.
• .art (EFLUX.ART, LLC) — failed technical and financial.
• These applications didn’t provide financial statements, so failed the financial questions: .transunion (Trans Union LLC), .pnc (PNC Domains LLC), .cipriani (Cipirani Hotel), .jcp (JCP Media Inc)

Donuts signs 12 more new gTLD registry contracts

Donuts today announced that it has signed 12 more new gTLD Registry Agreements with ICANN.
The contracts, which have not yet been published, cover .bike, .camera, .clothing, .equipment, .estate, .guru, .holdings, .lighting, .singles, .ventures, .voyage and .企业, which is “.enterprise” in Chinese.
As of a week ago, the firm has also passed all of its Initial Evaluations, with no failures.
According to the DI PRO database, Donuts still has a total of 300 applications in play, of which 148 are contested.
Another 30 have objections, at least 103 have GAC Advice, and 96 are classified as “uncalculated risk”, all factors that could lead to delay and possibly rejection.
Today’s news mean ICANN has signed registry contracts with at least 16 new gTLDs.
It’s not much by the standards it had set itself — expecting to sign 20 a week by now — but it’s almost as many as it’s signed in the preceding 15 years.