Iranian org not happy about .eco bids

The Iran-based treaty organization ECO, the Economic Cooperative Organization, has registered its displeasure with ICANN that several companies have applied for .eco as a gTLD.
ECO is a multinational IGO focused on development formed by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey in 1985. It has seven other Asian and Eurasian member states.
In a letter to ICANN brass this week, the organization said it “expresses its disapproval and non-endorsement to all the applications for .ECO gTLD and requests the ICANN and the new gTLD application evaluators to not approve these applications.”
.eco has been proposed as a gTLD for environmental causes by four companies. It was one of the first new gTLD ideas to emerge, several years ago, and was once backed by Al Gore.
Under changes to the application rules currently under development at ICANN, ECO may enjoy a second-level ban on the string “eco”, possibly only temporarily, under all new gTLDs.
The criteria for this IGO name protection is expected to be based on the criteria for registering a .int domain name, which are reserved for certain categories of international treaty organizations.
Unless ICANN really pulls the rug out from under applicants, the protection would not extend to the top-level in the current application round, however.
ECO notes in its letter that as it qualifies for a .int, it should be protected.
However, eco.int is not registered and ECO uses a .org domain for its web site, begging the question of how seriously it takes its domain name brand protection strategy.
Read ECO’s letter here.

5 Comments Tagged: .eco, ICANN, new gTLDs

Demand Media mulls eNom spin-off

Are the synergies between domain name registrars and content farms not all they were cracked up to be?
That’s a question emerging from last night’s news that Demand Media is planning to spin off its domains business, which includes number-two registrar eNom, into a separate public company.
The company, reporting its fourth-quarter earnings, said that it’s looking into the possibility of breaking up content and domains into two separately-owned businesses.
The new domain company would comprise eNom (wholesale) and Name.com (retail) on the registrar side, any new gTLDs Demand manages to win, the formative registry back-end business, and its stake in NameJet.
“We believe that a separation of the two independent companies will better position each business to pursue their increasingly diverse strategic priorities and opportunities,” CEO Richard Rosenblatt told analysts.
The spin-off would have revenue of over $150 million a year and margins of almost 20%, chief financial officer Mel Tang added.
Rosenblatt said new gTLDs will be “transformative” for the domain industry, saying that Google, Amazon and dot-brands will help grow consumer awareness of the world beyond .com.
Demand has filed 26 new gTLD applications of its own, and has 50-50 rights to 107 more with Donuts.
Previously, Demand has stated in regulatory filings that it used data gathered from domain name lookups to create ideas for the content farm side of its business. It’s not clear if that would continue after a split.

Comment Tagged: demand media, enom, name.com, namejet

.transformers gTLD bid transforms into pile of burnt cash

Toy-maker Hasbro has withdrawn its application for the .transformers new gTLD.
It was Hasbro’s only application, and it’s the first example of an applicant that paid to participate in ICANN’s new gTLD prioritization draw last December subsequently withdrawing its bid.
One of the longer and more eyebrow-raising applied-for strings, .transformers brings the number of withdrawn applications to 18, most of which were dot-brands. Now, 1,912 bids remain.
The bid had a prioritization number of 131, putting it toward the very top of the queue of non-IDN applications.
If many more applications with high prioritization numbers withdraw, it would raise serious questions about the validity of the argument that participating in the draw indicates a non-defensive bid.
Hasbro’s application suggested that it was filed mainly defensively, it’s “Mission/Purpose” stated as primarily: “To secure and protect the Applicant’s key brand (“TRANSFORMERS”) as a gTLD”.
Maybe it was worried that an electrical parts manufacturer might go for the same string?
It’s the sixth application to be withdrawn in a week, following General Motors’ pulling of its .gmc, .cadillac and .chevrolet bids and Hartford Fire Insurance’s withdrawal of .thehartford.
UPDATE (February 20): ICANN tells me that there are currently only three more new gTLD applications in its withdrawal pipeline.

6 Comments Tagged: .transformers, hasbro, ICANN, new gTLDs, withdrawal

Hackers may have stolen .edu domain passwords

Owners of .edu domain names have been told to change their passwords after hackers compromised a server belonging to registry manager Educause.
The registry said today that it has deactivated the admin passwords for all .edu domains after discovering a “security breach” that gave attackers access to hashed passwords for .edu registrants.
The attack also compromised passwords for users of the Educause web site, the organization said.
The .edu domain is of course reserved for US-based educational institutions, and is considered one of the most secure and prestigious TLDs available.
Educause said it “immediate steps to contain this breach and is working with Federal law enforcement, investigators, and security experts to make sure this incident is properly addressed.”
The registry did not say whether the attack is related to the attack against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last month, which reportedly was enabled via an Educase hack.

Comment Tagged: .edu, educause, mit, security

PIR starts pre-registration for .ngo domain names

Public Interest Registry has become the first major gTLD registry to start taking pre-registrations for a not-yet-approved gTLD.
PIR said today that it’s allowing non-governmental organizations to register an “expression of interest” for .ngo and .ong domains.
Pre-registrations are of course free and non-binding. They’re mainly a way to opening the marketing communications channel with customers well in advance of the launch of a TLD.
PIR does not expect to launch .ngo or .ong until 2014. Its ICANN evaluation priority numbers for the two TLDs are 810 and 958, in the first half of the list.
Pre-registration is not a new concept, of course, but it’s one generally embraced more often by registrars (eNom and United Domains are the two most prominent examples) rather than incumbent registries.
For PIR to start engaging directly with potential registrants is one of the first signs that, in the wake of ICANN’s lifting of the ban on vertical integration between registries and registrars, the new gTLD market won’t be playing by the old rules.

6 Comments Tagged: .ngo, .ong, ICANN, new gTLDs, public interest registry

Pile up! GM cancels two more new gTLD bids

Is General Motors bowing out of ICANN’s new gTLD program completely? It’s certainly looking that way, following the withdrawal of two more of its five original applications.
ICANN updated its site yesterday to reflect that GM has yanked its bids for .chevrolet and .cadillac, two of its proposed automotive dot-brands.
It comes just a few days after its .gmc application was pulled, and suggests that its remaining applications — for .buick and .chevy — may also be withdrawn in the near future.
The total number of gTLD applications withdrawn is now up to 17, a dozen of which are dot-brands, from an original list of 1,930.
We may be seeing more in the near future. Applications withdrawn before ICANN publishes Initial Evaluation results — expected to start March 23 — qualify for a refund of 70%, or $130,000. After that, the refund halves.
The final number of withdrawn applications will be telling, and likely to inform future new gTLD application rounds.
If it turns out a large number of companies applied for dot-brands purely defensively (I wouldn’t consider 12 to 17 withdrawals a large number) then ICANN may have to rethink how the program is structured.

1 Comment Tagged: .buick, .cadillac, .chevrolet, .chevy, .gmc, general motors, ICANN, new gTLDs, withdrawals

Two more dot-brand gTLD bids withdrawn

Two applications for “dot-brand” new gTLDs were pulled last week.
General Motors has withdrawn its bid for .gmc and Hartford Fire Insurance Company dropped .thehartford.
Both bids had been assigned priority numbers in ICANN’s prioritization draw last December, but neither applicant had purchased tickets, suggesting a lack of interest in operating the TLDs.
The withdrawal of .gmc at this time, less than two weeks before the publication by ICANN of string similarity evaluation results, is particularly interesting, and a little strategically puzzling.
There’s an active application by GMO Internet for .gmo, which could conceivably be ruled confusingly visually similar to .gmc.
By pulling out now, GM has lost its right to file a string similar challenge at a later date, and may have lost its ability to win .gmc in all future application rounds too (if .gmo is approved this time around, GMO could claim confusing similarity against future .gmc bids).
But GM still has active bids for the much more meaningful .chevrolet, .buick, .chevy and .cadillac, all of which also have prioritization numbers suggesting GM mainly applied defensively.
Hartford’s .thehartford was its only application.
The two withdrawals bring the total to date to 15, at least 10 of which were dot-brands. There are now 1,915 applications still in play.
The new gTLD consultants involved in the withdrawn bids — which one assumes were mostly filed defensively based on advice received — are a fairly mixed bunch so far.

Comment Tagged: .gmc, .thehartford, dot-brand, ICANN, new gTLDs

ALAC likely to object to five .health gTLDs

ICANN’s At-Large Advisory Committee is planning to formally object to four applications for the .health gTLD and one for .健康, which means “.healthy” in Chinese.
Bids backed by Afilias, Donuts, Famous Four Media and Straat Investments (the investment vehicle of .CO Internet CEO Juan Diego Calle), as well as China’s StableTone, are affected.
Dev Anand Teelucksingh, chair of the ALAC’s new gTLD review group, posted the following to an ALAC mailing list this weekend:

Objection statements on community grounds will be drafted for the applications for .health given that the four tests for community objection grounds were passed. The gTLD RG will attempt to put together the objection statements to the applications for .health in time for RALO [Regional At-Large Organization] review around 22 February 2013.

The ALAC is able to file objections to new gTLD bids, using funds provided by ICANN, on only the Community or Limited Public Interest grounds.
Of the four strings before it (.health, .nyc, .patagonia and .amazon) the ALAC review group decided that only a Community objection against .health met its criteria.
These are the only confirmed ALAC objections to date.
The ALAC had received a request to object from the International Medical Informatics Association, which said:

These five proposals are seen as problematic by the global health community for the following reasons:

• None of the applicants demonstrates that the name will be operated in the public interest.
• None of the applicants demonstrates adequate consumer protection mechanisms.
• All of the applicants are commercial in nature and none represent the health community.

Two governments — France and Mali — both expressed concerns about .health on similar grounds by filing Early Warnings last November.
ICANN’s deadline for filing objections is March 13.

1 Comment Tagged: .health, .健康, alac, community objection, objections

Governments to reveal new gTLD objection shortlist next week

ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee will next week reveal its shortlist of new gTLD applications that face possible death-by-government.
A brief notice posted to the GAC web site yesterday said:

During the week of February 18th, 2013, the GAC will post its list of applications for consideration by the GAC as a whole in Beijing, in the context of developing GAC advice as outlined in the Applicant Guidebook (Module 3 section 3.1).

This appears to mean that the GAC has been doing a lot of preparatory work to get the list of 1,916 remaining new gTLD applications down to a more manageable number.
ICANN is expecting to receive GAC Advice on New gTLDs, as defined in the Applicant Guidebook, not too long after its Beijing public meeting closes on April 11.
As reported earlier today, ICANN expects to start approving new gTLDs April 23. It’s not going to do this before it’s received the GAC’s go-ahead.
GAC Advice could take the form of a consensus recommendation to ICANN to kill off one or more new gTLD bids, or non-consensus “concerns” that would be less deadly to applicants.
GAC members have already issued 242 Early Warnings, which were designed to give applicants the opportunity to change their plans or withdraw before receiving full GAC Advice.
No doubt some of the companies in receipt of Early Warnings will have done enough in the interim to put governments’ minds at rest, but there’s also nothing stopping the GAC adding new applications to its hit-list.
The European Commission and Iran both submitted lists of concerns outside of the official Early Warning process, and there’s been no official word from the GAC yet as to what status they have.
With that in mind, it’s difficult to predict how many applications, and which ones, are going to be on the GAC’s new shortlist.

1 Comment Tagged: early warnings, gac, gac advice on new gtlds, ICANN

Chehade names the date: ICANN to approve first new gTLDs on April 23

ICANN expects to approve the first new gTLDs on April 23, just 68 days from now.
The long-awaited date, which of course comes with certain caveats, was revealed by CEO Fadi Chehade in a video interview with ICANN media affairs chief Brad White today.
Chehade said:

We are now targeting to be able to recommend for delegation the first new gTLD as early as the 23rd of April, and I can say this because we have made great progress in the last few weeks in aligning all the necessary pieces that would permit us to recommend a delegation as early as the 23rd of April.
Having said that, I want to be very clear there are some things that we can’t control that may cause this date to slip, but even in that case we are looking for a slippage of days or weeks, not months anymore. So we are definitely now with clear visibility on a set of processes that allow us to hit the first recommended delegation as early as the 23rd of April.

The news is surprising; those following the new gTLD program closely are more accustomed to hearing announcements about delays.
Chehade’s recent comments at a meeting of registries and registrars in Amsterdam, in which he said his personal preference would be to delay the whole new gTLD program by a year, did not suggest the imminent announcement of so ambitious a deadline.
He addresses those comments in the interview.
The news strongly suggests that ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee — arguably the biggest unknown quantity at this point in the process — is on target to submit its formal Advice on New gTLDs not too long after the ICANN public meeting in Beijing, which ends April 11.
I would have put money on that not happening.
The date also suggests that ICANN is unlikely to extend the window for filing objections against applications, currently closing March 13, despite the very tight deadline this will create for potential objectors.
Because the results of the String Similarity Panel’s deliberations — which will very likely create new contention sets — will not be published until March 1, many organizations will only get seven or eight working days to finalize and submit their strategic objections.

10 Comments Tagged: ICANN, new gTLDs