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

Indian domain conference attracts 4,000

While US domain conferences are reportedly becoming sedate affairs, a domain-heavy summit that kicks off tomorrow in Mumbai has more than 4,000 signed-up attendees, according to organizers.
The two-day ResellerClub Hosting Summit, organized by Directi, may have “hosting” in the title, but its sponsors and agenda reveal a strong presence from the domain name industry.
Verisign is the major sponsor, plugging its .com and .net TLDs. Other sponsors include .org, .biz, .co, .asia and .pw.
The agenda features speakers from Public Interest Registry, ICANN, NameMedia and Directi new gTLD applicant Radix.

1 Comment Tagged: directi, resellerclub, resellerclub hosting conference

Demand Media: ignore our Republican gTLD rivals

Demand Media has asked ICANN to “ignore” complaints from the US Republican party about its application for the .republican gTLD.
Last month, the Republican National Committee and the Republican State Leadership Committee submitted comments to ICANN arguing that Demand would be an unsuitable custodian for the gTLD.
Demand is best known for its “unofficial, mediocre and sometimes incorrect” content farms, such as eHow, the letter (pdf) said.
The company should not be allowed to run .republican because it implies endorsement by the Republican party, or some kind of community backing for a non-Community application, the letter said.
This week, Demand has responded, saying it’s nothing but competitive posturing, given that the RSLC has applied for .gop (for “Grand Old Party”, a nickname for the Republicans):
A letter to ICANN from Demand subsidiary and .republican applicant United TLD Holdco, says:

Because the RSLC and RNC have applied for .GOP, an arguably competing string, it is easy to see through these arguments and ignore them as nothing more than an attempt to undermine the credibility of United TLD in order to gain a competitive advantage.
…
By their own admission, RSCL and RNC agree that “.REPUBLICAN has the potential to be a very powerful gTLD.” It is natural then, that they would attempt to discredit United TLD in the hope of eliminating competition for their own string.

The thrust of Demand’s rebuttal is that Republicanism is not an exclusively American movement — other parties around the world use the name — and that it also has generic meaning.
It further argues that the quality of the content Demand provides elsewhere is irrelevant, because the company plans to sell .republican domain names, not produce content there.
Demand has also applied for .democrat, the other major US political party, but did not receive any complaints from the Democratic party during the designated ICANN comment period.

2 Comments Tagged: .democrat, .republican, demand media, ICANN, new gTLDs, republican national committee

Trademark protection stalemate follows ICANN 45

Trademark interests and new gTLD applicants are at odds about trademark protection — again — following the ICANN meeting in Toronto two weeks ago.
In a welcomed, not-before-time show of cooperation, the Intellectual Property Constituency and Business Constituency submitted to ICANN a bulleted list of requests for improved rights protection mechanisms.
The list is, for the most part, not particularly egregious — calling for a permanent Trademark Claims service and a Uniform Rapid Suspension service that meets its cost goals, for example.
But the New TLD Applicants Group (NTAG), an observer component of the Registries Constituency, has dismissed it out of hand, anyway, saying that the time for policy changes is over.
Here’s the IPC/BC list:

1. Extend Sunrise Launch Period from 30 to 60 days with a standardized process.
2. Extend the TMCH and Claims Notices for an indefinite period; ensure the process is easy to use, secure, and stable.
3. Complete the URS as a low cost alternative and improve its usefulness – if necessary, ICANN could underwrite for an initial period.
4. Implement a mechanism for trademark owners to prevent second-level registration of their marks (exact matches, plus character strings previously determined to have been abusively registered or used) across all registries, upon payment of a reasonable fee, with appropriate safeguards for registrants with a legitimate right or interest.
5. Validate contact information for registrants in WHOIS.
6. All registrars active in new gTLD registrations must adhere to an amended RAA for all gTLD registrations they sponsor.
7. Enforce compliance of all registry commitments for Standard applications.
8. Expand TM Claims service to cover at least strings previously found to have been abusively registered or used.

Most of these requests are not entirely new, and some have been rejected by the ICANN policy-development process and its board of directors before.
The NTAG points out as much in a letter to ICANN management last week, which says that new gTLD applicants paid their application fees based on promises in the Applicant Guidebook, which should not be changed.

Many of the BC & IPC proposed policy changes have been considered and rejected in no fewer than four different processes and numerous prior Board decisions. Indeed, many go far beyond the recommendations of the IRT, which was comprised almost exclusively of trademark attorneys. These last-minute policy recommendations amount to just another bite of the same apple that already has been bitten down to its core.
The new gTLD policy development process is over. Applicants relied on the policies in the final Guidebook in making business decisions on whether to apply. At the time that ICANN accepted applications and fees from applicants, ICANN and applicants entered into binding agreements. ICANN should not change these agreements unilaterally without extraordinary reason and especially not when it would materially harm the counterparties to the agreements.

The Applicant Guidebook, as it happens, asks applicants to explicitly acknowledge that ICANN may make “reasonable
updates and changes” to the rules, even after the application has been submitted.
But if applicants reckon changes would create a “material hardship”, ICANN is obliged to “work with Applicant in good faith to attempt to make reasonable accommodations in order to mitigate any negative consequences”

Comment Tagged: applicant guidebook, cybersquatting, ICANN, new gTLDs, trademark claims, trademark clearinghouse, trademarks, uniform rapid suspension