New gTLD marketing conference coming to New York

Momentum Consulting has announced a conference focused on marketing with new gTLDs for New York City next March.
The Digital Marketing & gTLD Strategy Congress is designed for brand managers, trademark lawyers and marketing executives, according to organizers.
The preliminary agenda was published today. It includes speakers from Citibank, which has applied for two new gTLDs, Neustar, Afilias, Domain Diction, PIR, Deloitte and Donuts.
ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade has also been invited to deliver the keynote, according to the agenda.
Lead sponsors include Afilias and Domain Diction. DI, Domain Name Wire and The Domains are media sponsors.
The event will run from March 11 to 12 in New York City. The venue does not appear to have been confirmed yet.

3 Comments Tagged: Digital Marketing & gTLD Strategy Congress, ICANN, new gTLDs

Geo gTLD applicants make “public interest” case for priority approval

ICANN’s has reached out to governments supporting geographic gTLD applicants over the last week, urging them to submit formal comments on the proposed “Draw” mechanism for prioritizing applications.
A barrage of correspondence from regional and city governments, some dating back as early as March when Digital Archery was still in play, has been published by ICANN over the last 48 hours.
They’re accompanied by much more recent responses from ICANN’s newly installed new gTLD program general manager, Christine Willett.
ICANN has heard from, among others, the state backers of .tirol, .zuerich, .hamburg and .berlin, all arguing that their geographic gTLD bids should be prioritized as being in the “public interest”.
The Draw mechanism would give priority to internationalized domain names, but not geographic gTLDs.
What’s missing from all the letters are any attempts to explain or justify the “public interest” claims.
ICANN’s responses are all the same: thanks for your letter, please contribute to the current public comment period on the proposed new gTLD prioritization lottery.
The letters can all be found on ICANN’s correspondence page. The comment period closes Friday.

1 Comment Tagged: ICANN, new gTLDs

Chehade sets out 12-point plan for next six months

ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade has set out his goals for ICANN over the next six months in an open letter to the community.
The ambitious 12-point to-do list includes finishing off the next Registrar Accreditation Agreement, finalizing the Trademark Clearinghouse, and launching “a community effort” to address the Whois debate.
The document was described by Chehade at the close of the Toronto meeting last month as his “scorecard” for “what I plan to prioritize and do between now and Beijing”.
The next big ICANN meeting is in Beijing next April.
The letter states that “operational excellence”, something the organization was frequently criticized for its lack of under its previous leadership, is ICANN’s “highest priority”.
The new gTLD program is naturally a big part of that. Chehade said that ICANN plans to:

Deliver on every aspect of the new gTLD program launch next year, meeting obligations and securing the necessary resources and personnel to lead the transition from what has been a policy-driven effort to implementation of a responsive and reliable operation. As a first step, we are working to advance the dialogue on implementation of the Trademark Clearing House. We must also execute the prioritization draw, evaluations, and pre-delegation tests flawlessly.

As part of that effort, a new gTLD services department will be created. Part of its task will be to monitor policy work to make sure the policies being created are “implementable”.
Chehade said that the divisive Whois issue, which he controversially referred to as an “easy” problem to solve during remarks in Toronto, will be subject to a new review:

To strengthen our commitment to the public interest, we will launch a community effort addressing the WHOIS debate in a strategic way, to resolve the longstanding open items in this area.

On the RAA, Chehade said that ICANN “will plan to reach consensus on a solid and enforceable Registrar Accreditation Agreement that is fair and balanced.”
The full letter, which also sets out goals for internationalization and the evolution of the multi-stakeholder model, can be downloaded here.

Comment Tagged: beijing, ICANN, icann 46, raa, trademark clearinghouse, whois

Roussos sells his .home new gTLD application

In what I believe is the first instance of a new gTLD bid changing hands, CGR E-Commerce has sold off its .home application to another applicant.
CGR is the Cyprus-based company controlled by prominent .music applicant Constantine Roussos.
Among 29 changes to new gTLD applications approved by ICANN and published late last week were substantial alterations to CGR’s application for .home, which is contested by 10 other applicants.
All references to Roussos, his colleague Tina Dam, and CGR itself were removed, replaced by the names of executives from Defender Direct.
The applicant name is now “Dothome Ltd”, whereas originally it was “DotHome/CGR E-Commerce Ltd”.
“We just sold that company,” Roussos confirmed to DI. “All our assets and intellectual property pertaining to .HOME were transferred to Defender Direct, a company that also applied for .SECURITY.”
“They are the second largest home security company in the U.S and have a lot of resources to provide to create value in both the home and security arenas,” he added.
Back in April, while the new gTLD application period was still open, Roussos was known to be shopping around some spare TLD Application System slots.
The .home gTLD is one of the most-contested strings in the current round, but all 11 applicants face the risk that the string itself may be rejected on security and stability grounds.

2 Comments Tagged: .home, .music, cgr e-commerce, defender direct, dot home ltd

ICANN’s new gTLD fund at $352.3m

ICANN had $352.3 million in its new gTLD program bank account as of October 13, according to notes from a recent board meeting.
The numbers suggest that ICANN had only spent about $6 million on the program since the application window closed at the end of May.
With 1,930 applications at $186,000 a pop, excluding the seven refunds, ICANN should have grossed about $358 million.
The money is being held in a non-interest-bearing account, partly due to ICANN’s insistence that the program is not an exercise in self-enrichment.
Notes from the October 13 Board Finance Committee meeting also reveal that ICANN plans to revise its 2013 budget to account for the accelerated gTLD timetable.
The current budget was prepared before Digital Archery was scrapped and ICANN expected to process its applications in batches over two years. It now expects one batch lasting one year.

2 Comments Tagged: budget, digital archery, ICANN, new gTLDs

TLDH expects gTLD auctions in second half of 2013

While some new gTLD portfolio applicants are trying to get their contention sets resolved as quickly as possible, Top Level Domain Holdings reckons auctions won’t happen until the second half of 2013.
In a trading update this week, the company also said that it expects to start seeing revenue from its first successful new gTLD applications next year, with contested bids producing revenue in 2014.
TLDH said in a statement:

Provided that the ICANN proposed timetable is broadly adhered to, the Board of TLDH believes that a number of the Group’s 17 uncontested gTLD applications on its own behalf and the 5 uncontested client gTLD applications are likely to be revenue producing in 2013, with the balance becoming so in the first half of 2014. TLDH has commenced discussions with the leading worldwide registrars, premium name specialists, and secondary market platforms for distribution of these gTLD names.
TLDH is also working with other gTLD applicant groups to define formats for private auctions and other name resolution arrangements in respect of the contested names that TLDH has applied for. The Board expects that these auctions are likely to happen in the second half of 2013.

As we reported last week, fellow portfolio applicant Donuts approached competing applicants at the Toronto ICANN meeting last month with a proposal for running private auctions in early 2013.
The idea was not warmly received by many, we hear, and TLDH evidently does not agree.
The company also revealed this week that it plans to move its headquarters to Dublin, Ireland, and expects to start hiring more staff and directors in the near future.
Clark Landry, who has been a non-executive director of TLDH for several years, has left the board, TLDH announced.
Caspar von Veltheim, who has been managing some of TLDH’s geographic gTLD bids in Europe, has joined the board as an executive director, the company added.

Comment Tagged: ICANN, new gTLDs, tldh, top level domain holdings

Verisign defends .com price increases

Verisign has assured investors that it is confident its .com registry agreement is not in jeopardy, after seeing its stock plummet due to uncertainties over the deal.
In a statement yesterday, the company also defended the planned continuation of its price-raising powers.
It emerged last week that the US Department of Commerce is looking into the pricing arrangements of the new .com deal, which ICANN approved back in June.
Commerce has the right — in consultation with the Department of Justice and others — to approve or reject the contract based on its security/stability and pricing terms.
Whatever happens, it’s virtually unthinkable that Verisign will lose the contract. The company said:

While the review process with the Commerce Department may extend beyond Nov. 30, 2012, it could also be concluded by Nov. 30, 2012. In either case, Verisign expects to continue to run the .com registry.

It also said that its ability to increase prices by 7% in four of the six years of the contract is in fact in the public interest, saying in a lengthy statement:

The .com registry has an unequaled record of achievement, with full availability of DNS resolution in .com for more than 15 consecutive years. The economic activity supported by the .com registry is significant by any measure in an environment where the consequences of a failure of even a very short duration or degradation of the Domain Name System (DNS) resolution service, due to either a cyber attack or failure of hardware, software, or personnel, would have significant economic and non-economic impacts to the global economy.
The level of security and stability offered by Verisign is only possible with investments in overcapacity and redundancy, network security, intellectual property (IP) and in human capital: The engineers and employees at Verisign who operate the .com registry and ensure its security and stability. The pricing terms of the .com Registry Agreement enable Verisign to make these investments, develop the necessary IP, know-how and purpose-built systems, respond to new threats to stability as they emerge, and recruit and retain the specialized talent necessary to maintain our network, including dozens of globally distributed constellation sites and data centers in the U.S. and elsewhere.

In essence, Verisign is saying that the security and stability record — which Commerce evidently has already reviewed to its satisfaction — are inextricably linked to its ability to raise prices.
The company’s share price fell 18% in the aftermath of last week’s news, but recovered slightly yesterday — gaining about 11% — after the statement was released.

1 Comment Tagged: .com, commerce, ICANN, pricing, verisign

Right Of The Dot to offer new gTLD contention auctions with Escrow.com

New gTLD consultancy Right Of The Dot has partnered with Escrow.com on a new auction offering designed for new gTLD applicants in contention sets.
The deal, which ROTD said is exclusive, will enable the company to offer trustworthy escrow of funds as part of its auction service.
ROTD is planning three standard types of auction design — sealed-bid, ascending bid and live oral — for when mediation between gTLD applicants fails or is not wanted.
Its fees start at 4% of the winning bid, with the remainder being distributed to losing bidders.
Private auctions are expected in many cases to be the contention resolution method of choice for new gTLD applicants, because the losing bidders get paid when they drop out.
The alternative method laid out in the ICANN Applicant Guidebook would see funds flow instead to ICANN.
ROTD is the consultancy formed last year by well-known domain investors Monte Cahn (formerly of Moniker) and Michael Berkens (author of TheDomains.com).

Comment Tagged: escrow.com, right of the dot

ICM to intro sponsored search results with $75 credit for registrants

Tearing several chapters out of the Google playbook, ICM Registry is to introduce a sponsored search placement service for .xxx registrants, along with a substantial introductory credit.
The company will give each registrant a $75-per-domain credit against its forthcoming search platform, which in many cases will completely offset the cost of their .xxx domain.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, it’s the AdWords model for porn, following on from the recent launch of search.xxx, which ICM says has already had more than 12 million page views.
The ad system is expected to roll out in “early 2013”, but ICM has launched the credits incentive now in order to get early registrants to renew their domain names.
The vast majority of .xxx’s roughly 140,000 registrations occurred during its first two months of general availability and will be coming up for renewal in December and January.
That said, ICM had said even prior to this announcement that its early renewals were looking promising.
The ad credit will apply to all .xxx domains renewed or registered before January 31, 2013, ICM said in a press release.
The company has long talked about its plans for generating advertising and micropayment-based revenue. Over the long term, selling domains may prove to be a small part of its business.

1 Comment Tagged: advertising, icm registry, search.xxx, xxx

ICANN looking for new gTLD testing provider on very tight deadline

ICANN is seeking one or more pre-delegation testing providers for its new gTLD program on a very ambitious timetable.
An RFP issued yesterday calls for a company that can scratch-build a testing suite to put new gTLD applicants through the ringer before they go live, and have it up and running by March 25, 2013.
Pre-delegation testing is the last stage of the new gTLD program’s approval process.
Some new gTLD applicants have recently called on ICANN to begin testing as soon as possible — before even Initial Evaluation has finished — in order to speed up time to market.
The Applicant Guidebook suggests that ICANN itself would be doing the testing, and some applicants had made that assumption, but that’s clearly not the case.
The RFP spells out exactly what is required of the testing providers.
First, they’re expected to build bespoke software to run the tests.
In addition to load-testing and verifying the registry’s compliance with standards such as EPP, DNSSEC and Whois, it also needs a custom-made user interface for applicants and back-end integration with ICANN’s wobbly TLD Application System.
ICANN also wants to be able to open-source the software, which seems to rule out any off-the-shelf testing suites.
RFP respondents also need to be able test 20 applicants’ back-ends per week — potentially scaling up to 100 per week — as soon as ICANN starts signing registry agreements next year.
ICANN does not expect to announce the winning provider(s) until December 5. The deadline for responses is November 20.
In short, it looks like a challenging project on a very tight deadline.
I wonder how much institutional knowledge there is out there of, say, DNSSEC, in companies that are not also involved in new gTLD applications as either applicant or back-end.
The pool of possible RFP respondents is likely very small indeed.
The ability to run tests on the testing suite itself may also be limited by the timetable and the possible shortage of guinea-pig registry back-ends.
Why ICANN has waited until this very late date to issue the RFP is a real head-scratcher.
ICANN is offering a 24-month contract with a possible 12-month extension. The RFP can be downloaded here.

Comment Tagged: ICANN, new gTLDs, pre-delegation testing, rfp