.gay picks the absolutely perfect launch date

Top Level Design has announced the launch date for its forthcoming .gay gTLD, and the timing couldn’t be more symbolic.
It’s picked October 11 as the date for general availability, which also happens to be National Coming Out Day in the US.
National Coming Out Day, which has been observed by gay rights organizations since 1987, is meant to celebrate LBGTQ people “coming out of the closet” and publicly acknowledging their sexual identity.
It happens on the same date every year to commemorate a 1987 civil rights march in Washington, DC.
According to Wikipedia, the event is also celebrated in Ireland, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the UK.
Leading up to its GA launch, Top Level Design plans to kick off its sunrise period in August.
Given that .gay has not yet been delegated, and has not filed its startup plan with ICANN, I imagine there’s some flexibility to the launch timetable.
The registry has recently been brainstorming ideas about how to promote positive content and reduce the inevitable abuse in its new TLD.

Comment Tagged: .gay, ga, ICANN, launch, national coming out day, new gTLDs, sunrise, top level design

Dot-brand .bond has been acquired and will relaunch as a generic this July

The domain name’s Bond, dot Bond… or something.
Sorry.
ShortDot, the registry behind the .icu top-level domain, has acquired a dot-brand gTLD and plans to repurpose it as a generic.
The seller is Bond University, a newish, smallish university in Queensland, Australia, and the gTLD is .bond.
ShortDot co-founder Kevin Kopas confirmed the deal to DI tonight, and said the new owner hopes .bond will prove attractive to bail bondsmen, offerers of financial bonds and, yes, fans of the James Bond franchise.
There’s also the dictionary meaning of “bonding” with somebody in a familial, friendly or business sense.
A new Bond movie is due to come out next April, so .bond might pick up a few regs then, assuming the registry is careful not to too closely associate itself with the heavily-guarded IP.
Kopas said that the current plan is to launch a 60-day sunrise period July 9 this year. ShortDot is currently working on unbranding the TLD within its ICANN contract, to allow it to sell to an unrestricted audience.
Premium domains will be offered with premium renewal fees.
ShortDot also plans to move away from Neustar’s back-end to CentralNic.
Bond University never actually used its TLD, which would have been a single-registrant space for its own exclusive use. It’s been dormant since its 2014 delegation, with just a single placeholder domain in its zone file.
There are plenty of those. About 50 owners of unused dot-brands have chosen to terminate their ICANN contracts and simply fizzle away to nothing.
But a small handful of others have chosen to instead sell their contracts to registries that think they can make a bit of money marketing them as generic strings.
The most obvious example of this to date would be .monster, which XYZ.com recently relaunched as a quirky open generic after the jobs site Monster.com decided it didn’t need a dot-brand after all. It’s been on sale for about a month and has about 1,750 names in its zone file.
The first example, I believe, was .observer, which Top Level Spectrum acquired from the Observer newspaper in 2016. That TLD went on sale two years ago but has fewer than 1,000 domains under management today.
Kopas said that the plan is to sell .bond names for between $5 and $10 wholesale.
“Overall the goal of ShortDot is to offer domains that are affordable for end users and profitable for registrars,” he said.
It’s only the company’s second TLD. The first was .icu, which it bought from One.com (which hadn’t really used it) and relaunched in May 2018.
Since then, it’s grown extremely rapidly and is currently the eighth-largest new gTLD by zone file volume.
It had over 765,000 domains in its zone today, up from basically nothing a year ago, no doubt largely due to its incredibly low prices.
Before AlpNames died, it was selling .icu names to Chinese customers for the yuan equivalent of just $0.50.
Today, the domain is available from NameCheap and NameSilo, its two largest registrars, for about $1.50.
Remarkably, spam fighters haven’t highlighted much to be concerned about in .icu yet.
The TLD has a 6.4% “badness” rating with SpamHaus, roughly the same as the similarly sized MMX offering .vip, which is also popular in China, and lower than .com itself.
Compare to .loan, which has a bit over a million names and which SpamHaus gives a 28.7% “bad” score.
In other words, .icu seems to be doing very well, volume-wise, without yet attracting huge amounts of abuse.
It’s a neat trick, if you can pull it off. But is the success repeatable? I guess we’ll find out with .bond when it launches.

6 Comments Tagged: .bond, .icu, .monster, acquisition, bond university, dot-brands, ICANN, james bond, new gTLDs, observer, shortdot

CentralNic grabs more of the reseller market with $16.5 million acquisition

CentralNic is living up to its self-described role as an industry “consolidator” with the acquisition of Australian domain wholesaler TPP Wholesale.
The company, assuming it manages to find the financial backing, will pay AUD 24 million ($16.5 million) for the business, currently a unit of ARQ Group (formerly known as Melbourne IT).
TPP has 14,000 resellers and 840,000 domains under management, including 19% of all .com.au registrations, according to CentralNic.
The company reckons the unit had revenue of AUD 17 million ($11.7 million) and EBITDA of AUD 3.9 million ($2.7 million) in 2018, which makes the purchase look like a bit of a bargain when compared to its acquisition of Instra a few years ago.

1 Comment Tagged: acquisition, arq, centralnic, melbourne it, tpp wholesale

EURid inks trademark protection deal for non-trademark owners

.eu registry EURid is partnering on an alerts service for would-be trademark owners.
The company this week announced a deal with the EU Intellectual Property Office that will see applicants for European trademarks being able to receive alerts if and when somebody else registers the .eu domain matching their desired mark.
EURid said in a statement:

Some people have taken advantage of early publication of EUTM applications and registered the EUTM as a .eu domain name in bad faith. Effectively reducing the risk of such cyber-squatting infringements requires adopting preventive actions such as raising awareness and pro-actively informing the EUTM holders.
As of 18 May, holders and applicants of a EUTM can opt-in to receive alerts as soon as a .eu domain name is registered that is identical to their EUTM (application). By receiving such alert, EUTM holders are informed much faster and may take appropriate action much sooner.

It sounds a little like the Trademark Claims service new gTLD registries are obliged to offer during their launch, but for companies that not not yet actually own the trademarks concerned.
Offered by EUIPO itself, the service is also available to holders of EU trademarks.

Comment Tagged: cybersquatting, euipo, eurid, trademarks

CENTR: domain growth now slowest EVER

The number of registered domain names in the world is growing at its slowest rate ever, according to CENTR.
Its latest CENTRstats Global TLD Report, covering the first quarter of 2019, shows median domain growth of 3.4% year-over-year, a “record low”.
That stat peaked at 29.8% in the third quarter of 2015, according to the report. That was when the first significant wave of new gTLDs were hitting the market.
The 3.4% figure is the median growth rate across the top 500 TLDs CENTR tracks.
The group tracks 1,486 TLDs in total, a little under the 1,531 currently in the root, ignoring TLDs that are too small or have unreliable data.
The report says that growth rates are similar across ccTLDs and gTLDs, though gTLDs seem to be faring slightly better.
The median growth rate of the top 300 gTLDs was 4.1%.
For ccTLDs, the percentage growth varied between regions, from 1.4% in the Americas to 6.3% in the still much smaller African markets.
CENTR estimates that there were 351 million registered domains at the end of the quarter.

1 Comment Tagged: cctlds, centr, global tld report, growth, new gTLDs

Court rules domain name list should stay secret

Publishing a list of every domain name in their zone is something that most TLD registries do automatically on a daily basis, but a court in Chile has ruled that doing so is a cybersecurity risk.
NIC Chile, which runs .cl, said last week that it has won an appeal against a Transparency Council ruling that would have forced it to publish a list of the domains it manages.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the registry was within its rights to refuse to hand over an Excel spreadsheet listing the 575,430 domains in .cl to the person who requested it.
The request was just for the list of domains, with none of the other data you’d find in a zone file and no Whois information about the registrants.
Nevertheless, the court unanimously ruled that to hand over the list would present “cybersecurity risks”, according to NIC Chile attorney Margarita Valdés Cortés.
NIC Chile said in a statement:

In this particular case, it was considered that the bulk delivery of domain names to a private individual could generate risks of cybersecurity of various kinds, both in access to information as a result of those domain names as well as the possibility that, by having such a list, attacks on servers, phishing, spam or others could be made easier. Similarly, the ruling of the Court of Appeals understood that the delivery of the data affects commercial and economic rights of the holders of these .CL domains, and considered that there is a legal cause that justifies NIC Chile´s refusal to turn over the list of all registered names.

Cortés said that the case will now go to the nation’s Supreme Court for a final decision, after the Transparency Council appealed.
Access to zone files is considered by many security researchers to be an invaluable tool in the fight against cybercrime.
NIC Chile has published the ruling, in Spanish, here (pdf).

2 Comments Tagged: .cl, nic chile, security, transparency, zone files

ICANN redacts the secrets of Verisign’s .web deal

Afilias thinks it has found the smoking gun in its fight to wrestle .web out of the hands of rival Verisign, but for now the details are still a closely guarded secret.
The company recently filed an amended complaint in its Independent Review Process case against ICANN, after it managed to get a hold of the deal that Verisign struck with Nu Dot Co, the company that spent $135 million of Verisign’s money to win .web at auction in 2016.
The Domain Acquisition Agreement, which apparently set out the terms under which NDC would bid for .web on Verisign’s behalf, was revealed during disclosure in December.
But in publishing the amended complaint (pdf) (which seems to have happened in the last week or two), ICANN has whited out all references to the contents of this document.
Afilias claims that the DAA proves that NDC broke the rules of the new gTLD program by refusing to disclose to ICANN that it had essentially become a Verisign proxy:
It claims that ICANN should therefore have disqualified NDC from the .web auction.

Based on the terms of the DAA, it is evident that NDC violated the New gTLD Program Rules. ICANN, however, has refused to disqualify NDC from the .WEB contention set, or to disqualify NDC’s bids in the .WEB Auction.

Afilias came second in the 2016 auction, bidding $135 million. NDC/Verisign won with a $142 million bid, committing it to pay the amount Afilias was willing to pay.
While Verisign has said that it plans to market .web, Afilias believes that Verisign’s primary motivation at the auction was to essentially kill off what could have been .com’s biggest competitor. It says in its amended complaint:

ICANN has eviscerated one of the central pillars of the New gTLD Program and one of ICANN’s founding principles: to introduce and promote competition in the Internet namespace in order to break VeriSign’s monopoly

Whether the DAA reveals anything we do not already know is an open question, but Afilias reckons ICANN’s prior failure to disclose its contents represents a failure of its commitment to transparency.
Reading between the lines, it seems Afilias is claiming that ICANN got hold of the DAA some time before it was given to Afilias in discovery last December, but that ICANN “had refused to provide the DAA (or even confirm its existence)”.
By redacting its contents now, ICANN is helplessly playing into the narrative that it’s trying to cover something up.
But ICANN is probably not to blame for the redactions. It was ICANN holding the axe, yes, but it was Verisign that demanded the cuts.
ICANN said in its basis for redactions document (pdf) that it “has an affirmative obligation to redact the information designated as confidential by the third party(ies) unless and until said third party authorizes the public disclosure of such information.”
Afilias has also managed to put George Sadowsky, who for the best part of the last decade until his October departure was one of ICANN’s most independent-minded directors, on the payroll.
In his testimony (pdf), he apparently reveals some details of the ICANN boards private discussions about the .web case.
Guess what? That’s all redacted too, unilaterally this time, by ICANN.

3 Comments Tagged: .web, afilias, auction, ICANN, irp, last resort, ndc, new gTLDs, nu dot co, verisign

Got a spare three grand? For a limited period, you can buy a .th domain name

The Thailand ccTLD registry’s unusual, and unusually expensive, approach to selling second-level domains has seen .th open up for another limited-period application window.
Until June 30, anyone can pay THNIC Foundation a THB 10,000 ($313) fee to “apply for” a 2LD.
Each application will be manually reviewed, and successful registrants will be notified July 8.
But be warned: the fee for the first year and subsequent annual renewals is an eye-watering THB 100,000 ($3,130).
Trademark owners and owners of matching .co.th domains will get priority in the event of clashes with regular would-be registrants.
THNIC has been using this strange approach to second-level domain allocation — which looks more like a series of sunrise periods that never culminate in general availability — in sporadic, brief rounds for the last five years.
Most ccTLD registries with a legacy three-level structure — such as .uk, .jp and .nz — have opted to instead make 2LDs available in much the same way as 3LDs.

Comment Tagged: .th, second-level, sunrise, thnic, trademarks

Amazon wins! ICANN on verge of approving .amazon despite government outrage

Amazon has one foot over the finish line in its seemingly endless battle for the .amazon gTLD.
ICANN last week nudged its application along to probably its final hurdle and gave the strongest indication yet that the controversial dot-brand will soon be delegated in the root.
Amazon has essentially won, beating off objections from the eight South American nations of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization.
In a May 15 resolution, published late Friday, the ICANN board of directors resolved that there is “no public policy reason for why the .AMAZON applications should not be allowed to proceed”.
It now plans to approve the application for .amazon, along with the Chinese and Japanese translations, after Amazon’s “Public Interest Commitments” — enforceable voluntary commitments that would be incorporated into its registry contract — have been subject to 30-day public comment period.
These PICs would require Amazon to give each of the eight nations, and ACTO itself, one domain name under .amazon that they could use to provide non-commercial information about the region whose name the company shares.
Amazon would also have to block up to 1,500 culturally sensitive terms in each of the TLDs, so that nobody could use them.
There’d be a steering committee comprising Amazon and the ACTO members, which would get to decide which domains are blocked. Amazon would have the ultimate veto, but ACTO states could appeal by filing PIC Dispute Resolution Procedure complaint with ICANN.
The text of Amazon’s proposed PICs can be found in an April 17 letter to ICANN (pdf).
As far as I can tell, the public comment period has not yet been opened. If it has, it’s so well-hidden on the ICANN web site that even my voodoo powers have been ineffective in unearthing it.
It seems likely that it will attract comment from ACTO and its members, along with others with an interest in protecting the Amazon region.
Whether their comments will be enough to make ICANN change its mind about eventually delegating .amazon seems highly unlikely.
Amazon, in my view, has basically won at this point.
The victory comes over seven years after the original application was filed.
Amazon fought off a Community Objection from the Independent Objector in 2013, but its applications were rejected by ICANN after receiving consensus advice from the Governmental Advisory Committee.
The GAC reached consensus against Amazon only after the United States, which had been protecting what is one of its largest technology companies’ interests, caved to pressure from the rest of the committee.
But Amazon filed an Independent Review Process complaint, which in July 2017 came back in the company’s favor. The IRP panel ruled that the GAC’s advice had been flimsy and baseless, and that ICANN should un-reject the .amazon applications.
Since then, it’s been a fight between Amazon and ACTO, with ICANN trapped in the middle.
As far as ICANN is concerned, the GAC had only advised it to “facilitate” a resolution between the two parties. It does not appear to believe it was under an obligation to assure that both parties were happy with the outcome.
ACTO had wanted much stronger protections from Amazon including majority control of the policy steering committee and, hilariously, a button on every single .amazon web page linking to an ACTO site promoting the Amazon region.
The company rejected those requests, and instead put its own unilateral proposal to ICANN.
Following ICANN’s approval, it’s now very possible that Amazon could start using .amazon this year.
However, given the usual speed at which the company launches its delegated gTLDs, some time in the 2030s is just as likely.

3 Comments Tagged: .amazon, acto, amazon, gac, geographic, ICANN, new gTLDs, pics

WordPress-linked .blog dumps Nominet for CentralNic

Knock Knock Whois There, the .blog registry, has announced its decision to switch back-end registry providers.
The company, which is owned by WordPress.com owner Automattic, said that it has dropped Nominet in favor of fellow British rival CentralNic.
It announced the news in a blog post tonight.
The migration is expected to happen in late August or early September, pending ICANN approval (which is likely just a formality).
KKWT said in a blog post:

Deciding to change backend providers was a difficult decision and not one that we take lightly. We understand the time and effort it takes during the migration process, both on behalf of registrars, as well as everyone else involved. We strongly believe that this new partnership will enhance the .blog experience for our registrar, reseller partners, and registrants. We’re fortunate to have Nominet’s continued support to make this transition as smooth as possible.

It’s bad news for Nominet, because .blog is a quite high-profile TLD, at least in terms of new gTLDs.
.blog had just shy of 200,000 domains under management at the last count. Not much on the grand scheme of things, but enough to put it in the top 25 gTLDs from the 2012 round.
Nominet recently got some good news when Amazon switched the large majority of its largely unused gTLDs from Neustar.

Comment