New gTLD lottery to return in 2026

Remember The Draw? It was the mechanism ICANN used to figure out which new gTLDs from the 2012 application round would get a first-mover advantage, and it’s coming back in 2026.

The Org is currently considering draft Applicant Guidebook language setting out the rules for how to pick which order to process applications in the next round.

There’s no mention of Digital Archery this time. ICANN is sticking to the tried-and-tested Prioritization Draw, a lottery method in which applicants buy a paper ticket for a nominal sum ($100 last time) and ICANN pulls them out of a big bucket to see who goes first.

Applicants for internationalized domain names will have an advantage again, but it’s arguably not as strong as in the 2012 round, when all the IDN applicants that had bought tickets were processed first.

This time, the draw will take place in batches of 500 applications, according to the latest version of the draft AGB language.

The first batch will contain at least 125 IDN applications — assuming there are 125 — and they will be drawn first, before any Latin-script strings get a look. In subsequent batches, the first 10% of tickets drawn will belong exclusively to IDN applicants.

In the 2012 round, the first 108 applications selected were IDNs. The Vatican won the lucky #1 spot with .天主教, the Chinese term for the Catholic Church, while Amazon was the first Latin-script application with .play (which Google eventually won but still hasn’t launched, over 11 years later).

Due to California’s gambling laws, applicants will have to show up to buy a ticket in person. If they can’t make it, they can select an Angeleno proxy from a list provided by ICANN to pick it up on their behalf.

Last time around, The Draw took over nine hours to sort all 1,930 applications and was the social highlight of the community’s calendar. Santa Claus even showed up.

5 Comments Tagged: ICANN, idns, new gTLDs, the draw

First GlobalBlock prices revealed — they ain’t cheap

Trademarks owners, organizations and celebrities could find themselves paying the thick end of ten grand for the “peace of mind” offered by the new GoDaddy-led GlobalBlock trademark protection service.

101domain, which often has some of the least-expensive pricing, has become the first registrar to publish its prices for the domain-blocking service, which entered beta this week.

The base GlobalBlock service, which offers single-string blocking in 560 gTLDs and ccTLDs, is going for $5,999 per year, according to the 101domain storefront. The GlobalBlock+ version, which covers potentially tens of thousands of variants and typos, starts at $8,999 a year.

None of the other 20 approved GlobalBlock resellers I checked are currently publishing prices.

Some simple division shows us that the basic service works out to roughly $10.71 per domain per year — a bit more than Verisign will charge for a wholesale .com when its prices go up later this year — but the average per-domain cost should go down as more registries sign up to GlobalBlock.

With the GlobalBlock+ service offering to block 50,000 domains or more, the per-domain price obviously shrinks to pennies.

GlobalBlock is offered by the Brand Safety Alliance, a GoDaddy initiative, but it has support from the likes of Identity Digital, which has hundreds of gTLDs in its stable. Dozens of gTLD registry operators have recently asked ICANN’s permission to offer GlobalBlock and rival offering NameBlock.

The BSA has previously said it expects to launch with over 650 TLDs on board. A calculator on its web site suggests 511 are currently operational, but it has not yet named the participating TLDs.

Comment Tagged: 101domain, cybersquatting, globalblock, godaddy, trademarks

Domain universe grows on new gTLDs despite .com shrinkage

The number of domain names on the internet grew by about 600,000 during the fourth quarter of 2023, despite the drag caused by shrinkage in .com and .net, according to Verisign’s latest Domain Name Industry Brief.

There were 359.8 million registered domains at the end of the year across all TLDs, a 0.2% increase over September, the latest DNIB says.

The growth was hampered by declines in Verisign’s own flagship gTLDs, which were down by 1.2 million names over Q3 and a million names year-over year. Verisign blamed softness in China for the declines during its Q4 earnings call last week.

New gTLD reg volume picked up most of the slack, growing by 1.6 million or 5.3% over Q3, and 4.4 million or 15.9% over 2022. This seems to have been largely driven by six-figure increases at a handful of low-cost gTLDs coupled with smaller increases across the board.

ccTLDs grew more modestly, up about 200,000 names or 0.2% quarter over quarter and 5.3 million names, 4%, year over year. There were 138.3 million ccTLD domains at the end of the year. Growth seems to have been tempered by six-figure declines in the likes of .uk and .ru.

Comment Tagged: dnib, verisign

D3 signs up crypto gTLD client number five

New gTLD consultancy D3 Global has signed up its fifth blockchain gTLD client since launching last September.

The company today announced a deal with Core Chain to apply for .core when ICANN next opens a new gTLD application window, currently expected mid-2026.

Core Chain makes a software platform for developers that want to building decentralized applications on blockchains. It says it has over five million connected cryptocurrency wallets.

D3 has recently announced similar partnerships with NEAR Foundation (.near), Gate.io (.gate), Viction (.vic) and Shiba Inu (.shib).

The company says its mission is to help blockchain companies operate on the traditional DNS as well as the blockchain-based alternate naming systems.

Comment Tagged: blockchain, core chain, crypto, d3, ICANN, new gTLDs

GoDaddy reports strong domains growth

GoDaddy reported its fourth-quarter financial results last night, including growth in primary and secondary market domain sales it described as strong.

The company reported Q4 net income up 1,132% at $1.13 billion, on revenue up 5.8% at $1.1 billion. Income was higher than revenue due to a tax fiddle worth about a billion dollars.

CEO Aman Bhutani told analysts that domains revenue growth in the quarter was up 4%, while domains bookings was up 7%. Aftermarket domain sales totaled $118 million, an increase of 14%, he said.

For the full year, GoDaddy had net income up 295% at $1.39 billion on revenue that grew 4% to $4.25 billion. The annual results were of course also affected by the same tax situation.

Comment Tagged: earnings, financials, godaddy

How to qualify for a $40,000 gTLD

Organizations from most of the countries of the world, including some very wealthy economies, could find themselves eligible for a discount of up to 85% on ICANN new gTLD application fees, according to draft rules published for public comment today.

By my count, small businesses from 177 of the world’s countries and territories could qualify for cheap applications in the next round, expected in 2026, assuming they meet the new Applicant Support Program’s other criteria.

The list of qualifying nations includes the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China), oil-rich nations such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, wealthy Asian territories such as Hong Kong and South Korea, and some European nations, such as Serbia and Montenegro.

The draft ASP rules propose to subsidize applications from non-profits, intergovernmental organizations, indigenous/tribal groups, and small businesses that provide a “social impact or public benefit” from anywhere in the world.

It also promises subsidies to small businesses located in and owned by people based in several UN-designated economic regions: Small Island Developing States, Least Developed Countries, Economies in Transition, and Developing Economies.

Lists of these countries can be found in this UN document. China, Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong are among dozens on the “developing economies” list. Russia counts as an “economy in transition” along with a handful of other east European and west Asian nations.

There’s no requirement to have a public benefit or charitable mission to qualify as a “Micro or small sized business from a less-developed economy”, you just need to have fewer than 50 employees, less than $5 million in the bank, and less than $5 million of annual sales (or meet two of those three criteria).

According to my tally, there are 177 distinct territories on the applicable UN lists. The same UN document lists just 36 nations that qualify as “developed” economies.

Because the application fees for the next round are not yet fixed, the discount eligible applicants can get isn’t either. The placeholder text in the current draft says the discount will be in the range of 50% to 85%.

ICANN has previously said that the base fee could be as much as $270,000, so an 85% discount would be worth almost $230,000, reducing the fee to about $40,000. Each applicant would be limited to one gTLD.

Support applicants under any category also have to pass various background screening checks — they can’t be affiliated with another registry, for example — and have to show that paying the full base gTLD application fee would be a “financial hardship”.

This is defined as: “Cost of the subsidized base gTLD application fee ([X%] of the [$X] USD fee) is greater than 20 percent of the organization’s annual revenue”. So, if we assume a discounted fee of $40,000, only companies with revenue under $200,000 would qualify.

The 2012 round’s Applicant Support Program worked a little differently. Applicants could be from anywhere in the world, but they could earn points under the score-based rules by being from a developing nation.

There were only three applicants using the ASP in 2012, and only one — DotKids Foundation, based in Hong Kong and founded by the same businessman who founded DotAsia and currently sits on the ICANN board of directors — ended up qualifying for the cheaper application fee.

For the next round, ICANN has penciled in a Q4 2024 date to start accepting applications for the discount. The application window is expected to close a year later, at least six months before the new gTLD application window opens.

Anyone thinking about trying to game the system should note that ICANN promises that anyone “found to have abused the intent of the program” will be banned from the new gTLD program forever.

The proposed ASP rules are open for comment for 50 days here.

5 Comments Tagged: applicant support program, asp, ICANN, new gTLDs

Registry service provider evaluation handbook published

ICANN has released the first draft of its RSP Handbook, the guidelines and questionnaire for registry service providers that want to get pre-approved by the Org ahead of the next new gTLD application round.

The Handbook is aimed at the few dozen companies that offer back-end services to gTLD registries — companies such as GoDaddy, Identity Digital and CentralNic — to guide them through the process of getting approved under the new Registry Service Provider Evaluation Program.

The program was called for by the GNSO community in order to minimize the amount of time-consuming, expensive evaluation work required for each new gTLD application. If a gTLD applicant’s selected RSP has been pre-approved by ICANN, it’s an automatic pass on the technical part of the application.

The new Handbook 1.0 envisages four types of RSP. A “Main RSP” is a full-service provider that looks after all technical aspects of a registry back-end. There are also categories for companies that provide DNS resolution only and DNSSEC services.

A fourth type, the “Proxy RSP”, is aimed primarily at companies that provide secondary registry services in countries that have very restrictive domain licensing rules. That basically means China, and proxies such as ZDNS.

Incumbent gTLD RSPs have a distinct advantage in the Handbook process. If they’re in good standing with ICANN and have complied with their service level agreements for the last six months, they can skip the second, technical part of the evaluation.

Incumbents also get a streamlined process for additional registry services — stuff like name-blocking and registry locks — they wish to offer. If they already offer them in an existing gTLD, they get to skip the full Registry Services Evaluation Process.

The Handbook is a first draft and does not currently include things like fees and dates. It’s not yet open for public comment but you can read the 108-page PDF here.

ICANN expects to launch the pre-evaluation program 18 months before it starts accepting new gTLD applications, so applicants have a list of approved RSPs to choose from. With a Q2 2026 target date for the next application window, that means the RSP program could launch later this year.

Comment Tagged: ICANN, new gTLDs, next round, rsp handbook, rsps

WebUnited inks deal to “mirror” country’s TLD in the blockchain

Blockchain domains startup WebUnited says it has signed up its first registry client to a service that allows domain names to be “mirrored” on a blockchain naming service.

The company has inked a deal with Global Domains International, the registry for Samoa’s .ws ccTLD (sometimes marketed as a generic for “web site”), that will let its registrars up-sell matching .ws names on the Polygon blockchain.

WebUnited, a Swiss-based joint venture of domain registry ShortDot and “Web3” naming player Freename, says registrants will be able to use their mirrored .ws names to address cryptocurrency wallets, for example.

The company essentially acts as a registry service provider for its registry clients in much the same way as regular RSPs do now, except instead of putting domains into EPP databases and the consensus DNS, it adds them to a blockchain.

Registrars that choose to sign up to the service will use an “EPP-like” API to access the registry, ShortDot COO Kevin Kopas said. He expects .ws to charge about five bucks a year for the blockchain add-on domains.

Kopas said WebUnited is also mirroring policies found in regular domain names, so if somebody loses their domain in a UDRP case, for example, they also lose their matching blockchain name.

After .ws, ShortDot’s own TLDs — .bond, .sbs, .icu, .cyou and .cfd — are also expected to offer the mirroring service. Because these are gTLDs governed by ICANN contracts, ShortDot first has to go through the Registry Service Evaluation Process for approval.

Kopas said that once ShortDot has completed its RSEP it will be able to supply gTLD clients with template language to get their own RSEPs approved. He said WebUnited has a pipeline of potential ccTLD and gTLD registries that have expressed an interest in the service.

1 Comment Tagged: .ws, blockchain, freename, global domains international, ICANN, rsep, shortdot, webunited

GoDaddy project unveils brand-blocking calculator

GlobalBlock, an ambitious brand-protection initiative led by GoDaddy, has revealed a blocking calculator on its web site, showing potential clients how many thousands of domains they can expect to block for a single annual fee.

The calculator takes the user’s trademark as input (you can enter any string) and tells them how many domains are eligible to be blocked with the GlobalBlock service, which includes exact-match names in hundreds of TLDs, and GlobalBlock+, which includes variants.

The first value seems to top out at 511 right now, suggesting there are currently 511 TLDs live in the system.

The GlobalBlock+ result seems to depend to a large extent on how many potentially confusing homographs (such as ASCII letters that look like Cyrillic or Greek letters) your trademark contains. The string “facebook” shows 58,765 blocks, for example, while “google” returns 63,875.

GlobalBlock, a service of the GoDaddy-owned Brand Safety Alliance, had previously said it expects to launch this week with over 650 supported TLDs. Several gTLD registries are still waiting for ICANN approval to participate via the Registry Service Evaluation Process.

What’s not currently available is pricing. GlobalBlock is selling via “agents”, usually registrars, and while some registrars have already started marketing the service with press releases or blog posts, nobody seems to have put a dollar value on the service yet.

1 Comment Tagged: brand safety alliance, globalblock

Report: Monster “misappropriated” millions from Epik

Epik former CEO Rob Monster “misappropriated” over $3.5 million from the company before his departure last year, according to a report in Wired yesterday.

In a fairly in-depth piece on the registrar’s turbulent 2023, the tech publication said it has had eyes on a forensic accounting document that made the allegations:

An accounting firm hired by Epik to conduct a forensic investigation alleged that Monster had misappropriated more than $3.5 million, according to an internal preliminary report obtained by WIRED. More than $1.5 million was attributed to Monster personally withdrawing funds from the company. Nearly $2 million of Epik funds was used in Kingdom Ventures, Monsters’ venture capital firm, according to the report.

The article does not make it clear whether any criminality is alleged and Monster did not respond to the magazine’s request for comment.

The article also shed some extra light on the takeover of the former Epik Inc registrar by Epik LLC, a new company confirmed by ICANN to be owned by a company-formation outfit in Wyoming called Registered Agents Inc and not affiliated with Monster.

Registered Agents’ lawyer Bryce Myrvang told Wired that the plan is to offer its clients domains and web hosting when they form their companies, apparently confirming that the company is in it for the synergies rather than to hide Epik’s true owner.

Myrvang also offered his apologies to anyone offended by the recent weirdness coming out of its official Twitter account, which led some to believe that Monster was still pulling the strings at the company despite the new ownership.

1 Comment Tagged: epik, ICANN, registered agents