GM down to one gTLD bid after dropping .chevy

General Motors looks set to leave the new gTLD program completely, after dumping its application for .chevy.
It’s the fourth of GM’s five dot-brand gTLD bids to be withdrawn after .chevrolet, .cadillac and .gmc. Only .buick remains in the Initial Evaluation process.
Of the 116 new gTLD applications to be withdrawn to date, 55 have been uncontested and for single-registrant zones. Almost all of the 55 applied-for strings are famous brands.
It would be wrong to assume that each of these was a “defensive” application — some represent discontinued brands — but it’s still a worryingly high number, representing over $10 million in ICANN fees.
That said, it’s still less than 3% of the total applications submitted in the current round.

dotShabaka Diary — Day 5

Today, the fifth 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 20 August 2013
We thought it would be timely to offer a recap of our Pre-Delegation Testing (PDT) experience to date.
Prior to PDT
We entered the PDT process with confidence due to our positive experience during beta testing. While we had lots of questions and concerns before entering the PDT beta program, particularly with documentation and test cases, we remained positive because there was constant communication between ourselves and the PDT Service Provider (IIS).
Prior to entering the first production PDT, we found all issues were resolved efficiently. We were also able to speak with ICANN to clarify some of the more vexing issues we’d faced during the PDT Beta program. We were also thankful that Patrik Hildingsson, the Production Manager for PDT (at IIS), even reached out personally to warn us of some documentation issues they’d not yet had time to resolve.
Our experience with the PDT Helpdesk had improved significantly through the process, which is a credit to all those involved.
During PDT
When we finally entered the PDT testing window two weeks ago, there was a noticeable drop in dialogue between ourselves and the PDT Service Provider. This was not necessarily a concern as everything appeared to be going fine, although our technical logs were not showing a great deal of activity. We assume that no news is good news. However, one suggested area for improvement would be an increase in communication during the testing phase, even if it’s an email to say everything is fine and we have no concerns. The lack of communication had our technical team biting their nails everyday while they nervously watched the logs.
By the Wednesday of the second week, we sent an email to ask if there were any problems and if the third week of PDT (described by ICANN as the remedy period) would be required. The response was a little vague, but we think we’re in the clear and the testing is complete. While the system status has not changed, there has been no activity in our logs since last week, suggesting the third week is not required. Fingers crossed.
Overall, we are happy with the process and wish other applicants the best of luck with their PDT. One small tip we can offer is that the data submission window closes at 11:59 UTC on the Friday before your PDT appointment. Don’t mistake this as 23:59 UTC, or you’ll miss out. We uploaded our documents well in advance, but some of our staff almost got caught out when discussing when to hit the “submit” button. Luckily there were keen observers on our internal mailing list and no mistake was made.
Good luck!

Read previous and future diary entries here.

ICANN passes 92 new gTLDs

Ninety-two new gTLD applications received passing Initial Evaluation scores this week, as ICANN approaches the end of the long-running process.
With two weeks left on the official timetable, only 236 applications remain in IE. Another 1,574 have passed. With no failures this week, the number heading to Extended Evaluation remains at 14.
These are this week’s passing strings, with links to the corresponding application on DI PRO.

.villas .soccer .delivery .med .casino .sina .pamperedchef .case .weibo .kids .college .tech .newholland .life .yoga .world .barclaycard .report .casino .orange .shop .music .walter .srl .poker .shop .qtel .author .help .sap .consulting .starhub .stcgroup .stada .gives .srt .vuelos .zuerich .thd .vacations .taxi .pid .garden .news .industries .love .poker .taxi .express .athleta .pitney .phd .etisalat .mom .merck .earth .beer .safeway .actor .foundation .dclk .hamburg .home .studio .cologne .aquarelle .archi .kia .quest .buy .panerai .chat .band .spa .flickr .playstation .mobile .cash .jprs .saarland .kfh .condos .chintai .blog .cpa .sfr .sale .sky .erni .mih .visa .tickets

Uniregistry wins .gift and AOL yanks .patch bid

Three more new gTLD applications were withdrawn today, only one of which was related to this week’s previously reported batch of private auctions.
First, Famous Four Media has pulled out of the .gift race with Uniregistry, presumably after some kind of deal. They were the only two applicants, meaning Uniregistry wins the contention set.
Potentially complicating matters, there are also two applicants for .gifts — if the plural/singular debate is reopened, which seems possible after today’s events, it might not be over yet.
Second, AOL withdrew its application for .patch, which was to be a single-registrant space for its Patch-branded network of local web sites.
This seems to be connected to cost-cutting at AOL.
Last week, the company fired Patch’s creative director in front of 1,000 colleagues and announced it was cutting the number of sites in the network.
Today, it started laying off almost half of Patch’s 1,100 employees, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Third, Top Level Domain Holdings withdrew from the .guide contention set, leaving Donuts the winner — a formality following this week’s Innovative Auctions auction, which it lost.

Three gTLD contracts to be renewed next week

ICANN is set to belatedly renew the .info, .org and .biz Registry Agreements next week, according to the just published agenda of its board of directors’ next meeting.
The .info and .biz contracts expired last year, while .org’s expired in April. All three were extended while ICANN and the registries — Afilias, Neustar and PIR — figured out how much of the new gTLD Registry Agreement to incorporate into the renewed deals.
They wound up agreeing to, among other things, mandating the use of the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement in all three gTLDs, but only on the condition that Verisign agrees to the same terms for .com and .net.
The three contracts didn’t go far enough for some, such as the Intellectual Property Constituency, which wants new gTLD rights protection mechanisms such as Uniform Rapid Suspension to be added.
The approval of the three renewals is on the consent agenda for the ICANN board’s August 22 meeting, so it seems unlikely that there will be any huge changes to the previously published draft contracts.
Also on the agenda for next week are the redelegations of the ccTLDs for Botswana (.bw) and Portugal (.pt).

dotShabaka Diary — Day 4

Here’s the fourth 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.

Friday 16 August 2013
The IBM TMDB webinar was disappointing. We had hoped to gain some much needed insight into the TMDB system, but instead we left with more questions and concerns. Let’s hope IBM can lift their game for next week’s webinar and the integration and testing process is clarified.
In other news, it has been a week since the teleconference to discuss the URS Technical Requirements Document and we are still unclear on when the requirements will be finalised, posted and whether they stand on the critical path to our Sunrise. If the discussions during the teleconference are anything to go by, significant work is required by both parties to finalise the document. Implementing the requirements in the URS Technical Requirements Document isn’t as simple as flicking a switch – development efforts will be required. This work needs to start now.
Finally, there are now only a couple of days left in our Pre-Delegation Testing window and so far we have not heard anything; we hope that no news is good news. Following this we expect the PDT service provider will take a couple of weeks to review our results. Fingers crossed!
Still no welcome package.

Read previous and future diary entries here.

dotShabaka Diary — Day 3

Here’s the third 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.

Wednesday 14 August 2013
Our Pre-Delegation Testing (PDT) continues. The latest ICANN published timeframe shows 30 days duration to 30 August. Previous communications indicated it would take 14 days plus rectification (if required) and the PDT ‘clock’ is counting down 21 days. When will it end?
We now have access to the TMDB and have received the initial Registration Token. We have run some internal tests and it all looks OK. So what next? We will attend the TMDB webinar today and hopefully the TMDB integration and testing process will be defined. Stay tuned.
According to ICANN we will receive a ‘new Registry’ Welcome Pack soon. I suspect we are ‘ahead of the curve’ in terms of the timing of this pack and other applicants will receive this information once the Agreement is signed.
In other news, ICANN have published IOC, Red Cross and Red Crescent reserved lists in multiple languages, but the IGO list has not been defined. Is ICANN going to publish a list of countries (in six official United Nations languages) or is every Registry going to generate their own list with their own rules? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Read previous and future diary entries here.

CentralNic earmarks IPO money for new gTLDs

CentralNic this morning formally confirmed that it plans to float on the Alternative Investment Market in London and said the money raised will help it buy stakes in new gTLDs.
The London-based company plans to hit the market at the beginning of September. CEO Ben Crawford told The Telegraph yesterday that the company hopes to raise £5 million ($7.7 million) with the IPO.
CentralNic said in a press release this morning:

The Directors believe that the funds raised for the Group by the placing of shares will allow the Group to enhance its global distribution network, acquire interests in new gTLDs, expand its own retail business and obtain contracts from governments to operate their country code TLDs (“ccTLDs”), especially in developing markets.

While the company is best-known for running pseudo-gTLDs such as us.com and uk.com, it also provides the back-end for the repurposed ccTLDs .la and .pw and has 60 new gTLD back-end contracts, 25 of which are uncontested.
Crawford said in the press release:

We are profitable, debt free, asset backed and about to capitalise on the major changes being made to the internet with the influx of new TLDs. We already have in place the required IT infrastructure and global retailer network. We have also been awarded a significant number of new TLD contracts so the Company is confident of expanding rapidly.

According to The Telegraph, the IPO could value the company at £30 million ($46.4 million).
The Alternative Investment Market is the low-cap little brother to the London Stock Exchange. CentralNic will be the second registry, after Top Level Domain Holdings, to list there.

TLDH commits to four private gTLD auctions

Top Level Domain Holdings has committed four of its applied-for gTLDs to private auctions due to kick off tomorrow.
The four strings are .guide, .casa, .网址 (“web address” in Chinese) and .fishing, each of which has only one competing applicant.
The company will bid against Donuts on .casa and .guide, Demand Media on .fishing and Hu Yi Global Information Resources on .网址.
Results of the auctions, managed by Innovative Auctions, are expected to be announced next week.
TLDH was initially cautious about the idea of private auctions, but later decided to participate, for reasons CEO Antony Van Couvering explained in this June article.
Over 100 strings, including 68 from Donuts, are expected to be hitting the block with Innovative this week. The first six strings to be auctioned this way raised an average of $1.5 million per string.
TLDH has 49 strings in active contention.

dotShabaka Diary — Day 2

This is the second in DI’s series following the progress of شبكة. applicant dotShabaka Registry as it prepares to be one of the first new gTLD registries to launch.
The following journal entry was written by dotShabaka general manager Yasmin Omer:

Date: Saturday 10 August 2013
It has been nearly a month since we signed our Registry Agreement with ICANN and we are still confused about TMCH Integration Testing, which is a concern given it’s now seven weeks out from ICANN’s first delegation date.
Whilst we have access to the Sandbox LORDN file test environment, ICANN happened to mention that the ‘OT&E environment’ is available in this week’s webinar. That’s new information.
We still have no idea what the process is for TMCH integration testing or how we access the environment. Are there test cases? What’s the schedule?
The lack of information is a concern as we need to pass TMCH Integration to provide Sunrise notice. Let’s hope it’s not as complicated as PDT.
In other news, we received an email from Wendy Profit (Registry Product Manager) yesterday. It’s the first formal email we have received since signing our contract nearly a month ago.
The email contained a copy of the contract and a spreadsheet for contact details. Not sure if Wendy is indeed our account manager or if we even have one. We have sent an email asking her the same. Clearly we have a few questions for an Account Manager once we get one.

You can read past and future entries in this series here.