Apple, Google and Microsoft still don’t understand new TLDs

The world’s most-popular web browsers are still failing to recognize new top-level domains, many months after they go live on the internet.
The version of the Safari browser that ships with the Mountain Lion iteration of Apple’s OS X appears to have even gone backwards, removing support for at least one TLD.
The most recent versions of Google’s Chrome and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer also both fail to recognize at least two of the internet’s most recently added TLDs.
According to informal tests on multiple computers this week, Safari 6 on Mountain Lion and the Windows 7 versions of Internet Explorer 9 and Chrome v24 all don’t understand .post and .cw addresses.
Remarkably, it appears that Safari 6 also no longer supports .sx domains, despite the fact that version 5 does.
Typing affected domain names into the address bars of these browsers will result in surfers being taken to a search page (usually Google) instead of their intended destination.
If you want to test your own browser, registry.sx, una.cw and ems.post are all valid, resolving domain names you can try.
The gTLD .post was entered into the DNS root last August and the first second-level domain names went live in October.
The ccTLDs .sx and .cw are for Sint Maarten (Dutch part) and Curacao respectively, two of three countries formed by the breakup of the Netherlands Antilles in 2010.
ICANN approved the delegation of .cw in October 2011 and second-level domains there have been live since at least July 2012 (that’s when the registry’s site, una.cw, went live).
SX Registry’s .sx was delegated in December 2011 and sites there have been live since early 2012. It went into general availability in November.
Safari v5 on Windows and OS X recognizes .sx as a TLD, but v6 on Mountain Lion does not.
The problems faced by .post and .cw on Chrome appear to be mostly due to the fact that neither TLD is included on the Public Suffix List, which Google uses to figure out what a TLD looks like.
A few days after we reported last May that .sx didn’t work on Chrome, SX Registry submitted its details to the PSL, which appears to have solved its problems with that browser.
It’s not at all clear to me why .sx is borked on newer versions of Safari but not the older ones.
If the problem sounds trivial, believe me: it’s not.
The blurring of the lines between search and direct navigation is one of the biggest threats to the long-term relevance of domain names, so it’s vital to the industry’s interests that the problem of universal acceptance is sorted out sooner rather than later.

GAC Early Warnings just got a whole lot more important

ICANN will let new gTLD applicants change their applications in order to respond to the concerns of governments, it has emerged.
Changes to applications made as a result of Early Warnings made by the Governmental Advisory Committee “would in all likelihood be permitted”, ICANN chair Steve Crocker informed the GAC this week.
ICANN is also looking at ways to make these changes enforceable in the respective applicants’ registry contracts.
Combined, the two bits of news confirm that the GAC will have greater power over new gTLD business models than previously anticipated.
The revelations came in the ICANN board of directors’ official response to GAC advice emerging from last October’s Toronto meeting.
After Toronto, the GAC had asked ICANN whether applicants would be able to change their applications in response to Early Warnings, and whether the changes made would be binding.
In response, Crocker told his GAC counterpart, Heather Dryden, that ICANN already has a procedure for approving or denying application change requests.
The process “balances” a number of criteria, including whether the changes would impact competing applicants or change the applicant’s evaluation score, but it’s not at all clear how ICANN internally decides whether to approve a request or not. So far, none have been denied.
Crocker told Dryden:

It is not possible to generalize as to whether change requests resulting from early warnings would be permitted in all instances. But if such requests are intended solely to address the “range of specific issues” listed on page 3 of the Toronto Communique, and do not otherwise conflict with the change request criteria noted above, then such request would in all likelihood be permitted.

The “range of specific issues” raised in the Toronto advice (pdf) are broad enough to cover pretty much every Early Warning:

• Consumer protection
• Strings that are linked to regulated market sectors, such as the financial, health and charity sectors
• Competition issues
• Strings that have broad or multiple uses or meanings, and where one entity is seeking exclusive use
• Religious terms where the applicant has no, or limited, support from the relevant religious organisations or the religious community
• Minimising the need for defensive registrations
• Protection of geographic names
• Intellectual property rights particularly in relation to strings aimed at the distribution of music, video and other digital material
• The relationship between new gTLD applications and all applicable legislation

Some Early Warnings, such as many filed against gTLD bids that would represent regulated industries such as finance and law, ask applicants to improve their abuse mitigation measures.
To avoid receiving potential lethal GAC Advice this April, such applicants were asked to improve their rights protection mechanisms and anti-abuse procedures.
In some cases, changes to these parts of the applications could — feasibly — impact the evaluation score.
The GAC also made it clear in Toronto that it expects that commitments made in applications — including commitments in changes made as a result of Early Warnings — should be enforceable by ICANN.
This is a bit of a big deal. It refers to Question 18 in the new gTLD application, which was introduced late at the request of the GAC and covers the “mission/purpose” of the applied-for gTLD.
Answers to Question 18 are not scored as part of the new gTLD evaluation, and many applicants took it as an invitation to waffle about how awesome they plan to be.
Now it seems possible they they could be held to that waffle.
Crocker told Dryden (with my emphasis):

The New gTLD Program does not currently provide a mechanism to adopt binding contractual terms incorporating applicant statements and commitment and plans set forth within new gTLD applications or arising from early warning discussions between applicants and governments. To address concerns raised by the GAC as well as other stakeholders, staff are developing possible mechanisms for consideration by the Board New gTLD Committee. That Committee will discuss the staff proposals during the upcoming Board Workshop, 31 Janaury – 2 February.

In other words, early next month we could see some new mechanisms for converting Question 18 blah into enforceable contractual commitments that new gTLD registries will have to abide be.

New gTLD “strawman” splits community

The ICANN community is split along the usual lines on the proposed “strawman” solution for strengthening trademark protections in the new gTLD program.
Registrars, registries, new gTLD applicants and civil rights voices remain adamant that the proposals — hashed out during closed-door meetings late last year — go too far and would impose unreasonable restrictions on new gTLDs registries and free speech in general.
The Intellectual Property Constituency and Business Constituency, on the other hand, are (with the odd exception) equally and uniformly adamant that the strawman proposals are totally necessary to help prevent cybersquatting and expensive defensive registrations.
These all-too-predictable views were restated in about 85 emails and documents filed with ICANN in response to its initial public comment period on the strawman, which closed last night.
Many of the comments were filed by some of the world’s biggest brand owners — many of them, I believe, new to the ICANN process — in response to an International Trademark Association “call to action” campaign, revealed in this comment from NCS Pearson.
The strawman proposals include:

• A compulsory 30-day heads-up window before each new gTLD starts its Sunrise period.
• An extension of the Trademark Claims service — which alerts trademark owners and registrants when a potentially infringing domain is registered — from 60 days to 90 days.
• A mandatory “Claims 2” service that trademark owners could subscribe to, for an additional fee, to receive Trademark Claims alerts for a further six to 12 months.
• The ability for trademark owners to add up to 50 confusingly similar strings to each of their Trademark Clearinghouse records, provided the string had been part of a successful UDRP complaint.
• A “Limited Preventative Registration” mechanism, not unlike the .xxx Sunrise B, which would enable trademark owners to defensively register non-resolving domains across all new gTLDs for a one-off flat fee.

Brand owners fully support all of these proposals, though some companies filing comments complained that they do not go far enough to protect them from defensive registration costs.
The Limited Preventative Registration proposal was not officially part of the strawman, but received many public comments anyway (due largely to INTA’s call-to-action).
The Association of National Advertisers comments were representative:

an effective LPR mechanism is the only current or proposed RPM [Rights Protection Mechanism] that addresses the critical problem of defensive registrations in the new Top Level Domain (gTLD) approach. LPR must be the key element of any meaningful proposal to fix RPMs.

Others were concerned that the extension to Trademark Claims and proposed Claims 2 still didn’t go far enough to protect trademark rights.
Lego, quite possibly the most aggressive enforcer of its brand in the domain name system, said that both time limits are “arbitrary” and called for Trademark Claims to “continue indefinitely”.
It’s pretty clear that even if ICANN does adopt the strawman proposals in full, it won’t be the end of the IP community’s lobbying for even stronger trademark protections.
On the other side of the debate, stakeholders from the domain name industry are generally happy to embrace the 30-day Sunrise notice period (many will be planning to do this in their pre-launch marketing anyway).
A small number also appear to be happy to extend Trademark Claims by a month. But on all the other proposals they’re clear: no new rights protection mechanisms.
There’s a concern among applicants that the strawman proposals will lead to extra costs and added complexity that could add friction to their registrar and reseller channel and inhibit sales.
The New TLD Applicant Group, the part of the Registries Constituency representing applicants for 987 new gTLDs, said in its comments:

because the proposals would have significant impact on applicants, the applicant community should be supportive before ICANN attempts to change such agreements and any negative impacts must be mitigated by ICANN.

There’s a concern, unstated by NTAG in its comments, that many registrars will be reluctant to carry new gTLDs at launch if they have to implement more temporary trademark-protection measures.
New registries arguably also stand to gain more in revenue than they lose in reputation if trademark owners feel they have to register lots of domains defensively. This is also unstated.
NTAG didn’t say much about the merits of the strawman in it comments. Along with others, its comments were largely focused on whether the changes would be “implementation” or “policy”, saying:

There can be no doubt that the strawman proposal represents changes to policy rather than implementation of decided policy.

If something’s “policy”, it needs to pass through the GNSO and its Policy Development Process, which would take forever and have an uncertain outcome. Think: legislation.
If it’s “implementation”, it can be done rather quickly via the ICANN board. Think: executive decision.
It’s becoming a bit of a “funny cause it’s true” in-joke that policy is anything you don’t want to happen and implementation is anything you do.
Every comment that addresses policy vs implementation regarding the strawman conforms fully to this truism.
NTAG seems to be happy to let ICANN mandate the 30-day Sunrise heads-up, for example, even though it would arguably fit into the definition of “policy” it uses to oppose other elements of the strawman.
NTAG, along with other commenters, has rolled out a “gotcha” mined from a letter then-brand-new ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade sent to the US Congress last September.
In the letter, Chehade said: “ICANN is not in a position to unilaterally require today an extension of the 60-day minimum length of the trademark claims service.”
I’m not sure how much weight the letter carries, however. ICANN could easily argue that its strawman negotiations mean any eventual decision to extend Claims was not “unilateral”.
As far as members of the the IPC and BC are concerned, everything in the strawman is implementation, and the LPR proposal is nothing more than an implementation detail too.
The Coalition for Online Accountability, which represents big copyright holders and has views usually in lock-step with the IPC, arguably put it best:

The existing Rights Protection Mechanisms, which the Strawman Solution and the LPR proposal would marginally modify, are in no way statements of policy. The RPMs are simply measures adopted to implement policies calling for the new gTLD process to incorporate respect for the rights (including the intellectual property rights) of others. None of the existing RPMs is the product of a PDP. They originated in an exercise entitled the Implementation Recommendation Team, formed at the direction of the ICANN Board to recommend how best to implement existing policies. It defies reason to assert that mechanisms instituted to implement policy cannot now be modified, even to the minimal extent provided in the current proposals, without invoking the entire PDP apparatus.

Several commenters also addressed the process used to create the strawman.
The strawman emerged from a closed-doors, invitation-only event in Los Angeles last November. It was so secretive that participants were even asked not to tweet about it.
You may have correctly inferred, reading previous DI coverage, that this irked me. While I recognize the utility of private discussions, I’m usually in favor of important community meetings such as these being held on the public record.
The fact that they were held in private instead has already led to arguments among even those individuals who were in attendance.
During the GNSO Council’s meeting December 20 the IPC representative attempted to characterize the strawman as a community consensus on what could constitute mere implementation changes.
He was shocked — shocked! — that registrars and registries were subsequently opposed to the proposals.
Not being privy to the talks, I don’t know whether this rhetoric was just amusingly naive or an hilariously transparent attempt to capitalize on the general ignorance about what was discussed in LA.
Either way, it didn’t pass my sniff test for a second, and contracted parties obviously rebutted the IPC’s take on the meeting.
What I do know is that this kind of pointless, time-wasting argument could have been avoided if the talks had happened on the public record.

Ten registrars spanked for ignoring ICANN audit

ICANN has sent breach notices to 10 domain name registrars for failing to respond to its ongoing contract compliance audit.
The 10 registrars with breach notices are: Crosscert, Mat Bao, DomainsToBeSeen.com, USA Webhost, Internet NAYANA Inc, Cheapies.com, Domainmonger.com, Lime Labs, Namevault.com, and Power Brand Center.
According to ICANN, these registrars failed to provide the requested documentation as required by their Registrar Accreditation Agreement.
The Contractual Compliance Audit Program is a proactive three-year effort to check that all registries and registrars are abiding by the terms of their agreements.
ICANN selected 317 registrars at random for the first year of the program. As of January 4, 22 had not responded to these notices.
Only registrars signed up to the 2009 version of the RAA are contractually obliged to respond.
Verisign, which was one of six gTLD registries selected to participate this year, has controversially refused to let ICANN audit .net, saying it is not obliged to do so.
While the .net contract does have some audit requirements, we understand they’re not as wide-ranging as ICANN’s audit envisages.
The 10 registrars have been given until February 1 to provide ICANN with the necessary information or risk losing their accreditations.

Anger as ICANN delays key new gTLDs milestone

New gTLD applicants could barely disguise their anger tonight, after learning that ICANN has delayed a key deliverable in the new gTLD program — originally due in October — until March.
On a webinar this evening, program manager Christine Willett told applicants that the string similarity analysis due on all 1,917 remaining bids is not expected to be ready until March 1.
The analysis, which will decide which “contention sets” applications are in — whether .hotel must fight it out with .hotels and .hoteis, for example — had already been delayed four times.
The reasons given for the latest delay were fuzzy, to put it mildly.
Willett said that ICANN has concerns about the “clarity and consistency of the process” being used by the evaluation panel — managed by InterConnect Communications and University College London.
Under some very assertive questioning by applicants — several of which branded the continued delays “unacceptable” — Willett said:

When you don’t have a consistent process, or there are questions about the process that is followed, it invariably would put into question the results that would come out of that process…
I don’t want to publish contention sets and string similarity results that I can’t stand behind, that ICANN cannot explain, and that only frustrate and potentially affect the forward progress of the program.

See? Fuzzy.
It sounded to some applicants rather like ICANN has seen some preliminary string similarity results that it wasn’t happy with, but Willett repeatedly said that this was not the case.
It’s also not clear whether the pricey yet derided Sword algorithm for determining string similarity has had any bearing on the hold-ups.
One of the reasons that applicants are so pissed at the latest delay is that it presents a very real risk of also delaying later stages of the evaluation, and thus time to market.
Willett admitted that the remaining steps of the program — such as objections and contention resolution — are reliant on the publication of string similarity results.
“I am quite confident we will have results on string similarity by March 1,” she said. “We need to publish contention sets — we need to publish string similarity results — by March 1 in order to maintain the timeline for the rest of the program.”
March 1 is worryingly close to the March 13 deadline for filing objections, including the String Confusion Objection, which can be used by applicants to attempt to pull others into their contention sets.
Just 12 days is a pretty tight deadline for drafting and filing an objection, raising the possibility that the objection deadline will be moved again — something intellectual property interests would no doubt welcome.
The IP community is already extremely irked — understandably — by the fact that they’re being asked to file objections before they even know if an application has passed its Initial Evaluation, and will no doubt jump on these latest developments as a reason to further extend the objection window. Some applicants may even agree.

Policy versus implementation… shouldn’t that be complexity versus simplification? [Guest Post]

ICANN has just published a paper that attempts to frame what is policy and what is implementation. Now, if you’re a normal person, your natural response would be “who cares?”.
But if you’re an Icannite, chances are you’re already in a bit of a state. Because the question of what, within the ICANN decision-making process constitutes policy development, and what should be considered implementation of policies that have already been developed, is one that has grown contentious indeed in recent times.
The theory behind ICANN is that it works by bringing together groups of people from various backgrounds or with various interests and then waiting until they all take a decision. That can then become part of the sets of official guidelines that govern the way the Internet’s addressing and numbering system works.
In this obvious oversimplification of the ICANN model, the group of people are called stakeholders and the decisions they take are policies. The way they arrive at those decisions goes by the sweet name of “bottom-up, consensus-driven, policy development process”.
This is what makes ICANN such a unique governance body. One that (in theory) takes into account the opinions and inputs of all interested parties.
It is designed to prevent one view from dominating all others, be it the opinion of industry insiders, politicians or even free-speech advocates — all groups with legitimate interests, but all groups that, when they find themselves in the ICANN fish pond, have to listen to the other fish.
Except that they don’t always want to. And in recent years, as the pressure on the ICANN model has increased because of the new gTLD program, there have been several occasions when some thought it would be better to cut through (or go around) the policy development process to get things done.
This is where the policy versus implementation debate comes from. It’s a boring one to most balanced human beings, but a crucial one for those who rate ICANN and the work that goes on there as a major interest.
The new staff paper is a welcome initiative by ICANN to try and make real progress on a debate that has, up until now, simply exacerbated tensions within the ICANN community.
It’s a first step. A kind of “state of play” view of what can at present be considered policy within the ICANN system, and a first attempt at separating that from implementation.
It’s only eight pages long (and if that seems long to you, believe me, as far as ICANN papers go, this is the equivalent of a 140-character tweet), but if you can’t be bothered to read it, I’ll break it down for you in just one word: complexity.
A first step towards much needed simplification
The real issue behind this debate is the overly complex thing that ICANN has become. Don’t agree? Even though staff need to write an eight-page report just to help everyone, including themselves, understand what “policy” means?
Read the paper and marvel at the number of different processes that could be termed policy within ICANN, including something called “little p policies”, as opposed to “Capital P Policies”. Then there’s “formal policies”, “operational policies” and even “consensus policies”.
Just in setting that scene, the staff paper is useful!
Let’s hope it leads all ICANN stakeholders to the clear realization that this can’t go on any longer. ICANN must simplify its processes so that there is no longer a need to spend time and energy splitting hairs on deciding things like: when in the ICANN universe is policy making actually making policy, and when is it implementing policies that have already been made?
This is a guest post by domain name industry consultant Stephane Van Gelder of Stephane Van Gelder Consulting. He has served as chair of the GNSO Council and is currently a member of ICANN’s Nominating Committee.

Don’t panic! Crocker clarifies “end of year” new gTLD comments

ICANN chairman Steve Crocker has clarified comments made during a recent interview in which he said he expected new gTLDs to be delegated “towards the end of the year”.
Crocker told DI today that ICANN plans to put new gTLDs into the root “as quickly as possible” and “hopefully by the middle of the year”.
In response to our blog post yesterday, he said in an email:

What I wanted to convey was that by the end of the year I hope we will have seen the effects of some of the first new gTLDs delegated into the root. I didn’t mean to suggest that those first delegations wouldn’t happen until the end of the year. We are working aggressively toward our goal of delegating some of the first new gTLDs as quickly as possible, hopefully by the middle of this year. Instead, I was looking beyond the instant the strings enter the root to the time when the community will be able to see the effects.

So, there you have it.

In major snub, Verisign refuses to let ICANN audit .net

Verisign has delivered a significant blow to ICANN’s authority by refusing to take part in its contractual compliance audit program.
The snub runs a risk of scuppering ICANN’s plans to make compliance a cornerstone of its new management’s strategy.
In a letter to ICANN’s compliance department this week, Verisign senior vice president Pat Kane said that the company has no obligation to submit to an audit of .net under its ICANN contract.
Kane wrote:

Verisign has no contractual obligations under its .net Registry Agreement with ICANN to comply with the proposed audit. Absent such express contractual obligations, Verisign will not submit itself to an audit by or at the direction of ICANN of its books and records.

The company is basically refusing to take part in ICANN’s Contractual Compliance Audit Program, a proactive three-year plan to make sure all gTLD registries and accredited registrars are sticking to their contracts.
For registries, the plan calls for ICANN to look at things like compliance with Whois, zone file access, data escrow, monthly reporting, and other policies outlined in the registry agreements.
Verisign isn’t necessarily admitting that it thinks it would not pass the .net audit, but it is sending a strong signal that it believes ICANN’s authority over it has limits.
In the program’s FAQ, ICANN admits that it does not have explicit audit rights over all contracted parties, stating:

What’s the basis for including all contracted parties, when the ‘Right to Audit’ clause isn’t present in 2001 RAA and Registry Agreements?
One of ICANN’s responsibilities is to conduct audits of its agreements in order to ensure that all contracted parties are in compliance with those agreements.

If Verisign is refusing to participate, other registries may decide they don’t want to cooperate either. That wouldn’t look good for ICANN, which has made compliance a key strategic priority.
When Fadi Chehade started as CEO last September, one of his first moves was to promote compliance boss Maguy Serad to vice president, reporting directly to him.
He told DI that he would be “bringing a lot more weight and a lot more independent management from my office to the compliance function”.
At his inaugural address to the community in Prague last June, he spoke of how he planned to bring IBM-style contract management prowess to ICANN.
Compliance is also a frequently raised concern of the Governmental Advisory Committee (though generally geared toward rogue registrars rather than registries).

Crocker sees new gTLDs going live “towards the end of the year”

Not exactly the news that new gTLD applicants wanted to hear.
ICANN chairman Steve Crocker has put a tentative date of “towards the end of the year” for the first approval and delegation of new gTLDs, months later than some applicants were expecting.
In a video interview with ICANN media affairs chief Brad White, reviewing the organization’s goals for the year, Crocker said:

We will see some strings towards the end of the year I think actually approved and perhaps delegated into the root and so it will be interesting to see the how all that comes out what kinds of moves are made.

That time-frame is later than most industry experts speaking to Bloomberg BNA for a recent briefing paper had predicted. Some expected new gTLDs to start hitting the root as early as April.
Better news for applicants came in Crocker’s response to a question about whether ICANN was wedded to its 1,000 delegations-per-year limit, which could artificially throttle some applicants’ plans. He said:

I do not want to suggest that there will be a change, but I suspect there is plenty of capacity to increase that somewhat if it were necessary to do so.

The interview also discusses ICANN’s investment strategy for its new gTLD funds, its meetings strategy for the next few years, and the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (which Crocker said is “nearing completion”).
Watch the whole thing here:

Fight over new sports gTLDs gets real ugly

The battle for contested new gTLDs .rugby and .basketball is turning nasty.
Roar Domains, a New Zealand marketing firm whose gTLD applications are backed by the official international bodies for both sports, is promising to pull out all the stops to kill off its competition.
The company, which is partnered with Minds + Machines on both bids, has told rival portfolio applicant Donuts that it will attack its applications for the two TLDs on at least three fronts.
Notably, Roar wants Donuts disqualified from the entire new gTLD program, and plans to lobby to have Donuts fail its background check.
The company told Donuts last month:

while we have no desire to join the chorus of voices speaking out against Donuts, it is incumbent on us to pursue the automatic disqualification of Applicant Guidebook Section 1.2.1, and every opposition and objection process available to us.

Applicant Guidebook section 1.2.1 deals with background checks.
Donuts came under more scrutiny than most on these grounds during the new gTLDs public comment period last year due to its co-founders being involved at the sharp end of domain investment over the last decade.
Demand Media and eNom, where founder Paul Stahura was a senior executive, have lost many UDRP cases over the years.
A mystery lawyer who refuses to disclose his clients started pursuing Donuts last August, saying the company is “unsuited and ineligible to participate in the new gTLD program.”
Separate (pseudonymous?) public comments fingered a former Donuts director for allegedly cybersquatting the Olympics and Disney.
While Roar has not claimed responsibility for these specific previous attacks, it certainly seems to be planning something similar in future.
In addition, Roar and International Rugby Board, which supports Roar’s application for .rugby, say they plan to official objections with ICANN about rival .rugby bids.
The IRB told Donuts, in a letter shortly before Christmas:

As the global representative of the sport and the only applicant vested with the trust and representation of the rugby community, we are unquestionably the rightful steward of .RUGBY.
…
Without the support of the global rugby community your commercialization efforts for .RUGBY will be thwarted. We are also preparing an objection to file against your application in accordance with ICANN rules to which you will be required to dedicate resources to formulate a response.

Roar and the IRB are also both lobbying members of ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee, which has the power to file potentially decisive GAC Advice against any application.
Roar told Donuts recently:

Roar serves as the voice and arm for FIBA [the International Basketball Federation] and IRB in the New gTLD area. We are pleased to have obtained four Early Warnings on behalf of our applications, and fully expect the GAC process to be completed to GAC Advice.

The Early Warnings against the two other .rugby applicants were filed by the UK government — the only warnings it filed — while Greece warned the two non-Roar .basketball applicants.
Roar is also involved with the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) on its .basketball bid.
While commercial interests obviously play a huge role, there’s a philosophical disagreement at the heart of these fights that could be encapsulated in the following question:
Should new gTLDs only be delegated to companies and organizations most closely affiliated with those strings?
In response to the UK’s Early Warning, Donut has written to UK GAC representative Mark Carvell asking for face-to-face talks and making the case for a “neutral” registry provider for .rugby.
Donuts told Carvell:

We believe gTLDs should be run safely and securely, and in a manner that is fair to all law-­abiding registrants, not only those predetermined as eligible. A neutral third party, such as Donuts, can be best capable of achieving this outcome.
…
Donuts believes a neutral operator is better able to ensure that the gTLD reflects the full diversity of opinion and content of all Internet users who are interested in the term “rugby.”
As the IRB is a powerful voice in rugby, an IRB‐managed registry might not be neutral in its operations, raising questions about its ability to impartially oversee the gTLD. For example, will IRB/Roar chill free speech by censoring content adversarial to their interests? How would they treat third parties who are interested in rugby but aren’t part of the IRB? What about IRB critics or potential rival leagues?

Despite these questions, no .rugby applicant has said it plans to operate a restricted registry. There are no applications for .basketball or .rugby designated as “Community” bids.
The IRB/Roar application specifically states “anyone can register a .rugby domain name.”
Both .basketball and .rugby are contested by Roar (FIBA/IRB/M+M), Donuts (via subsidiaries) and portfolio applicant Domain Venture Partners (aka Famous Four Media, also via subsidiaries).
Roar is a sports marketing agency that is also involved in bids for .baseball, .soccer, .football and .futbol. The New Zealand national team football captain, Ryan Nelsen, is on its board.
Here are the letters (pdf).