NameJet and Afternic sign another gTLD launch

NameJet and Afternic will provide launch auctions and premium name distribution for the .build gTLD, should it be approved, the two companies have announced.
The deal was inked with applicant Plan Bee LLC, which is affiliated with Minardos Group, a construction company.
The two companies will handle auctions under the sunrise and landrush phases, according to a press release.
It’s the second such deal to be announced by the Afternic/Namejet partnership to date, after WhatBox’s .menu. The companies are also working with Directi’s .pw registry.
Plan Bee has also applied for .expert and .construction, but these are both contested so there’s less certainty that they’ll end up approved.
The applicant reckons it will be able to bring .build to market in the fourth quarter of this year.
With a prioritization number of 1,049 in ICANN’s queue, this may prove optimistic, depending on how the remaining portions of the program — such as predelegation testing and contracting — pan out.

First seven TMCH agents approved

The Trademark Clearinghouse has listed its first seven approved trademark submission agents.
These are the companies that are able to secure bulk discounts for submitted marks to the TMCH.
The first seven are NetNames, Corporation Service Company, SafeNames, MailClub, Key-Systems, Net-Chinese, which are all domain registrars too, and the Law Offices of S.J. Christine Yang, which isn’t.
Holders of large trademark portfolios are also allowed to become agents in their own right, but most TMCH submissions are expected to be carried out via these third parties.
The full list is here.
The cost of submitting trademarks, if you’re an agent, can be worked out using the TMCH Cost Calculator.

Trademark Clearinghouse lowers prices

The Deloitte-managed Trademark Clearinghouse has slashed its bulk submission prices in response to feedback from registrars.
A newly revised TMCH price list leaves the basic fees of $145 to $95 per mark per year untouched, but makes it much easier for large trademark owners and brand protection companies to qualify for discounts.
The system for securing bulk discounts is based on “Status Points” that accumulate as trademarks are submitted, with five pricing tiers available.
The changes mean submission agents need to rack up 1,000 points in order to become eligible for the first discount tier, instead of 3,000. The cheapest tier is accessible at 90,000 points instead of 100,000.
The TMCH has also doubled the number of bonus points awarded for submitting trademarks during the “early bird” phase, which runs until the first new gTLD sunrise period begins, making it easier to hit discount milestones.
According to the Trademark Clearinghouse Cost Calculator, which has been updated with the new numbers, savings could be substantial.
For example, a submission agent that submits 10,000 marks for five-year registrations during the early bird period will pay $5,232,125, which is $742,950 cheaper than under the old pricing scheme.
That would be an average cost of $104.64 per mark per year, compared to $119.50 under the old regime.
A listing in the TMCH is a prerequisite if a trademark owner wants to participate in new gTLD sunrise periods or take advantage of the Trademark Claims cybersquatting alert service.
We gather that the price reductions came largely as a result of feedback from registrars that plan to act as submission agents, rather than from trademark owners themselves.

New hires at Donuts, DomainDiction and 101domain

It’s been a busy week in the industry for executive switcheroos, with Donuts, DomainDiction and 101domain all announcing senior-level hires.
Today it emerged that Elaine Pruis, a long-time key member of the Minds + Machines team, has jumped to rival new gTLD applicant Donuts, where she’s now director of operations.
That’s quite a surprising move, coming so soon before gTLDs start getting delegated and — perhaps more importantly — contention set resolution deadlines start closing in.
DomainDiction, the gTLD-focused PR agency, has meanwhile lost one top expert and gained two others.
Pinky Brand, an alum of .mobi, Verisign and Iron Mountain, has gone solo, launching his own consulting business under the name [ PINKY ] • BRAND.
Former NetNames strategy director Stephane Van Gelder, an occasional DI guest poster, has been brought on as lobbyist and copywriter, while IP lawyer Bart Lieben has been hired for his considerable expertise in sunrise periods.
Neither man is on DomainDiction’s exclusive payroll, and continue to have other projects.
Finally, 101domain yesterday announced that it’s hired Joe Alagna as head of channel development. Alagna until recently worked in the registry world, as CentralNic’s general manager for North America.

Two more gTLD bids kicked out of the program, but .kids gets ICANN funding

Two more applications have been rejected from the new gTLD program, after they tried and failed to have their application fees subsidized by ICANN’s Applicant Support Program.
Three gTLDs were submitted for financial assistance, but ICANN’s Support Application Review Panel, delivering its results (pdf) today, decided that only one of them qualified for a cheapo bid.
DotKids Foundation Ltd, which is applying for .kids, is the lucky recipient of $138,000 worth of waived application fees. Its application now enters Initial Evaluation.
The applicants for .ummah (Ummah Digital Ltd) and .idn (NameShop), on the other hand, have been given a refund of the $47,000 application fee they paid and politely shown the door.
ICANN said: “applications that did not meet the threshold criteria for financial assistance will be excluded from further participation in this round of the New gTLD Program”.
That rule was introduced to prevent gaming — companies that asked for cheaper applications risked losing their applications if they failed to meet the requirements for support.
It doesn’t mean there was anything wrong with their gTLD applications, however.
The approval of funding for the DotKids Foundation is goodish news for people uncomfortable with Amazon’s closed gTLD land-grab — the retailer is the only other applicant for .kids.
While the .kids contention set remains, is pretty safe to say that Amazon will be able to utterly crucify its competition if the TLD goes to auction.

TLD Health Check from DI is the first business intelligence tool for the new gTLD era

DI today introduces TLD Health Check, an industry-first business intelligence service that enables users to quickly and easily monitor the performance of top-level domains.
TLD Health Check is software as a service. It allows anyone to not only track the growth of gTLDs new and old, but also to compare TLD popularity and abuse levels across the industry.
TLD Health Check is launching with 27 interactive charts and tables that make it simple for users to:

• Monitor the growth of gTLD registries. gTLD growth (or shrinkage) can be tracked against multiple criteria including domains under management, newly added domains, renewals and deleted domains. Based on official registry reports, the service also dynamically calculates metrics such as average registration periods, enabling users to gauge registrant confidence in each gTLD’s relevance and longevity.
• Rank TLDs by popularity. TLDs can have lots of domains, but which TLDs are being visited most often by regular internet users? TLD Health Check aggregates TLD data from Alexa’s list of the top one million most-popular domain names, to figure out which TLDs web surfers actually use on a daily basis.
• Compare abusive activity across 300+ TLDs. TLD Health Check calculates TLD abuse data from several major third-party malware and phishing domain lists, letting you instantly compare abuse levels between every live TLD.
• Track cybersquatting levels by TLD. Drawing on a database of over 75,000 UDRP decisions, TLD Health Check lets you compare TLDs to see where the major cybersquatting enforcement is happening. DI PRO’s intelligent algorithms allow you to see only successful UDRP cases.
• Measure registrar market share. Different registrars excel at selling different TLDs. TLD Health Check measures registrar growth and ranks companies by their market share in each TLD.
• (Coming Soon) Monitor secondary market activity. Leveraging a database of tens of thousands of reported domain name sales, you can see where the secondary market action is.

The services is built on top of a massive database, over two years in the making, comprising hundreds of thousands of records dating back to 1999. Our data sets are updated hourly, daily, weekly and monthly.
Get Access
TLD Health Check is currently in open subscriber beta, and we have an aggressive program of weekly feature upgrades and additions planned for the next few months.
The service can be accessed now by DI PRO subscribers, for no additional charge.
If you’re not already a PRO subscriber, please visit our subscriptions page to sign up for instant access.
New Monthly Subscription Option
To coincide with the launch of TLD Health Check, and in response to many reader requests, today we’re also announcing a new monthly subscription option for DI PRO.
Not only that, but any new subscriptions processed before March 15 will receive a perpetual $10-per-month discount if the subscriber uses the discount code NYC when subscribing.
DI is attending the Digital Marketing & gTLD Strategy Congress in New York today and tomorrow. Fellow attendees are welcome to request an in-person TLD Health Check demo.

Architelos runs new gTLD market readiness survey

New gTLD consultancy/software provider Architelos is carrying out a survey of new gTLD applicants in an effort to gauge how ready they are to launch.
The company is of the view that many applicants are under-prepared for the amount of work coming down the pike when they finally pass through ICANN’s long-running evaluation process.
The five-minute Q&A covers areas such as financial planning, compliance, hiring and launch marketing.
It’s also a way for Architelos to prospect for potential customers, though responses can be anonymous if desired.
If you’re an applicant, you can participate in the survey here.

Google, L’Oreal execs tapped for new gTLD summit

Executives from Google, L’Oreal and The Boston Globe have been lined up to speak at the new gTLD marketing conference taking placing New York next month.
Hal Bailey, director of Google’s domains business, will speak on the panel “Domains in 2015, 2020, 2025: A View of the dot Future” at the Digital Marketing & gTLD Strategy Congress, according to organizers.
L’Oreal’s chief digital officer has dropped out of the conference, but he has been replaced by Brigitte King, senior vice president of the company’s digital business.
L’Oreal and Google are two of the new gTLD applicants currently under fire for applying for so-called “closed generic” gTLDs, which could make for some interesting discussions.
King will chair the conference and deliver a keynote entitled “The L’Oreal Story: Building Beauty Brands with Digital, Data and Direct Relationships”. L’Oreal has applied for 13 new gTLDs.
The Boston Globe, which has applied for .boston, is sending Jeff Moriarty, it vice president for digital products, and industry IP lawyer Bart Lieben to talk about the newspaper’s plans for the gTLD.
Momentum Consulting, which is organization the dot-brand focused event, says it has 80 confirmed attendees and is on target to have more than its expected 120 by the time ticket sales close.
DI will also be in attendance. I’m hosting a fireside chat with ICANN’s Sally Costerton, head of stakeholder relations.
The conference runs March 11-12 in New York City.

It’s official: people hate the domain name industry

I’ve said it many times before: the domain name industry has problems with its reputation. But now the official figures are in that — apparently — prove it.
According to ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade, the industry is perceived four times worse the IT industry average.
That figure — whatever it means — came out of a “reputational analysis” study conducted by expensive consultants hired by ICANN, Chehade told registrars and registries in Amsterdam today.
“The results were not flattering,” he said. “The negative perception of our industry runs four times the IT industry average.”
“Our industry is not a well-established or well-received industry,” Chehade said.
A second study conducted by a pricey PR firm — which looked at media coverage and polled the big three tech industry analysis firms — apparently confirmed the results.
“None of the three top analysts cover our sector,” he said. “They don’t even look at it.”
“Let’s stop the constant attacking of our registrars and registries,” he later added.
“Are there bad actors? Every industry has bad actors, but ours are somehow featured all the time in the media,” he said. “How about if we talk about the good guys that do real works and serve their communities and help businesses thrive? That’s the story I want to tell.”
Chehade said he’d shared the results of the two studies with the CEOs of major registrars at a roundtable discussion at ICANN HQ last week.
He said he’s trying to reach out to analysts to engage more with ICANN in a bid to improve the industry’s reputation.
“As the new gTLD program rolls in the second half of this year, it’s very important that we’re prepared with the right people in these places so our perception, and how the industry talks about us, is the right thing,” he said.
Chehade, who’s been at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week, also pointed to a pronounced lack of awareness of the domain name sector among other industry leaders.
“Out of the CEOs I met — and I met many — I’d say half of them don’t know who we are,” Chehade said.
He said that one profile-raising idea that came out of his registrar CEO round-table was to create “the first DNS world conference… a true business and industry conference”.
There’s also talk about a “good housekeeping” seal for well-behaved domain name industry companies.
“If it’s perception issue or an actual issue, we need to do things that start showing the world we are a responsible industry,” he said.
Chehade plans to meet next month with registry CEOs and invited new gTLD applicant back-ends, and later with the leaders of ccTLD registries.

Check out our Trademark Clearinghouse Cost Calculator

The forthcoming Trademark Clearinghouse — which will underpin Sunrise periods in new gTLDs as well as the new Trademark Claims service — released its price list yesterday.
Two payment mechanisms are expected to be available: Basic, for trademark owners with 10 or fewer trademarks, and Advanced, for large trademark portfolio owners and companies that wish to act as submission agents (such as digital brand management companies).
As the prepaid Advanced system is somewhat complex, with five tiers of discount and an accumulating points-based mechanism for determining eligibility, we’ve designed a simple, easy-to-use tool for helping companies calculate their likely fees.
DI PRO subscribers can check out the Trademark Clearinghouse Cost Calculator here.
Simply enter how many one-year, three-year and five-year registrations you expect to make, and the tool will present three pricing scenarios, designed to show what possible savings could be made by submitting longer-term registrations before others.
The tool also supports the Early Bird bonuses that the Clearinghouse intends to offer. These bonuses make it easier to achieve discounts more quickly, but only for registrations are submitted before the first new gTLD’s Sunrise period goes live.
The under-the-hood calculations are based on the official pricing scheme published yesterday by the Clearinghouse here (in PDF format).