Brands are Pool.com’s surprise digital archery clients

Companies applying to ICANN for “dot-brand” top-level domains are among those signing up for Pool.com’s new digital archery service, according to Rob Hall, CEO of parent Momentous.
The company launched its Digital Archery Engine last month, not too long after ICANN confirmed its controversial method of batching new gTLD applications for processing.
Now, Pool is receiving interest from not only mass-market generic string applicants, but also dot-brands.
“It’s a wider swath of TLDs that I thought originally,” said Hall. “At first I thought for sure the generics and the domains that might be in competition.”
“It’s amazing to me that a lot of people out there are saying the brands don’t care, the brands are doing this just defensively, the brands couldn’t care less about going first… but a lot of them do,” he said.
“A lot of them are saying ‘I want to be in that first batch’, which I wouldn’t have necessarily expected,” he added.
He said he had no idea what the motivations are for these brands.
“Our job is to get them in the first batch, not to ask them why they want to be there,” he said.
Hall said it wasn’t clear how many clients Pool would eventually sign up to the service, but said he expects it to be definitely much more than 50.
ICANN’s digital archery system – which will batch applicants according to which can most accurately send a message over the internet to a target time – was poorly received by most people.
Unsurprisingly, Hall is not one of those people.
Pool is one of several companies that have been competing to register expiring domain names for the better part of a decade, so its systems have been fine-tuned for sending messages over the internet quickly.
While the big registries such as .com use the EPP protocol, some of the registries Pool interacts with use HTTP, which seems to be ICANN’s preferred option for digital archery.
Hall said Pool aims for latency of less than 6 milliseconds. Its servers are positioned topologically close to registries – typically one or two hops – and the software measures monitors network conditions.
“The key is being able to detect what is the latency and to predict it, then factor that into the engine to say ‘When do I fire?’,” he said.
He does not anticipate the CAPTCHAs or other Turing tests presenting a problem – Pool would simply bring a human into the equation.
The Digital Archery Engine is not cheap. If Pool gets you into the first batch, you’re $25,000 out of pocket. If you’re in the top half of batches (batch three of five counts as top half) it’s $10,000.
The company was singled out recently by ICANN’s Intellectual Property Constituency as an “insider” exploiting the digital archery system as a “revenue extraction opportunity”.
A letter highly critical of the system from IPC chair Steve Metallitz said:

This arcane and seemingly arbitrary batching method will also reinforce the widespread impression that all ICANN procedures are dominated by “insiders” with contractual relationships to ICANN, who will surely know best how to manipulate this initiative to their own benefit, or that of their paying customers. It is difficult to reconcile such an outcome with ICANN’s obligation to act in the public interest.

Hall said was happy for the free advertising. “I’d like to thank them,” he said.
But he said Pool isn’t “manipulating” anything.
“They’ve called this ‘digital archery’,” he said. “It’s a game to see who’s best at it. That’s what they’ve designed. We’re not gaming anything. And we’re not offering this to insiders, we’re offering this to everyone.”

Nominet involved in seven gTLD applications

Nominet, the .uk registry, is providing registry services for seven new generic top-level domain applications, according to CEO Lesley Cowley.
Cowley told Nominet’s Annual General Meeting today that five of the applications are for dot-brands, a Nominet spokesperson said.
The identities of the clients are currently protected by non-disclosure agreements.
The other two bids are for .wales and .cymru, which Nominet is applying for with the approval of the Welsh government.
The other big European ccTLD operator to already announce its applications, Austria’s Nic.at, said recently that it has submitted 11 applications, six of which were geographic.

ICANN names $25m gTLD objector

French international law expert Alain Pellet has been appointed Independent Objector for the first round of ICANN’s new generic top-level domain program.
Pellet has worked as a law professor at University Paris Ouest, Nanterre-La Défense since 1990, according to his 26-page resume (pdf).
He’s also represented governments at the International Court of Justice and chaired the International Law Commission of the United Nations.
With an expected 2,000-plus new gTLD applications, Pellet will command a budget of around $25 million, funded by application fees, over the three years the first round is expected to take.
Even with so many applications, I’m struggling to imagine scenarios in which so much money would be required.
The IO’s job is to object to new gTLD applications “in the best interests of global internet users”.
Pellet’s team will be limited to the Community Objection and Limited Public Interest Objection mechanisms outlined in the program’s Applicant Guidebook.
The IO is there to object when opposition to a gTLD has been raised but no formal objection has been filed by, for example, an affected community.
That the IO exists is an excellent reason to file comments on applications you’re opposed to – if no complaints are received via the public comment process, Pellet will be unable to object.

.secure applicant claims NCC stole her idea

Domain Security Company CEO Mary Iqbal claims that NCC Group took many of her ideas for a high-security .secure top-level domain following unproductive investment talks.
Iqbal is also hinting at “potential future litigation” over the issue.
The surprising claims, made in emails to DI today, follow the announcement last week that a new NCC subsidiary, Artemis Internet, will also apply to ICANN for .secure.
“NCC Group has taken many of the security measures outlined in the Domain Security Company LLC security plan and incorporated them into the NCC Group’s proposed security measures,” Iqbal said.
Artemis chief technology officer Alex Stamos, a veteran security industry technologist, has dismissed the allegations as “completely ridiculous”.
“The only reason I know she is applying is because we did some Google searches when we were putting together our announcement,” he said.
Iqbal claims she was first contacted by NCC in January this year to talk about signing up for data escrow services – one of the technical services all new gTLD applicants need.
However, she says these talks escalated into discussions about a possible NCC investment in Domain Security Company, during which she shared the company’s security and business plans.
She said in an email:

These disclosures were made based on assurances from the NCC Group that the NCC Group was not then involved with any other applications for a secure Top Level Domain. Specific assurances were also given that the NCC Group was not involved with any other potential application for a .SECURE Top Level Domain.

But Stamos said that he’s been working on .secure at NCC since late last year, and he has no knowledge of any talks about investing in Iqbal’s company.
“All I know is that she talked to one of our salespeople about escrow,” he said. “I’ve never seen a business plan or security plan.”
Emails from an NCC executive sent to Iqbal in January and forwarded to DI by Iqbal today appear to be completely consistent with a sales call.
Iqbal said she has emails demonstrating that the talks went further, but she declined to provide them “since I may have to use it in any potential future litigation”.
Stamos pointed out that if NCC was in the habit with competing with its escrow clients, it would have applied for considerably more gTLDs than just .secure.
Artemis is proposing a significant technology development as part of its .secure bid, he said: the Domain Policy Framework, which he outlines on his personal blog here.
He added that Artemis is happy to compete with other .secure applicants – he evidently expects more to emerge – but on the merits of the application rather than “spurious claims”.
Domain Security Company “already has a very troubling history of using the legal process to overcome problems that should be based on merit”, he said.
That’s a reference to the company’s almost-successful attempt to secure US trademarks on .secure and .bank, in spite of the US trademark office’s rules against granting trademarks on TLDs.
Expect more stories like this to emerge about other gTLDs after ICANN’s Big Reveal of the applicant list next month.
Whether her claims have any merit or not, Iqbal’s not the first to claim that another applicant stole her idea, and she certainly won’t be the last.

Olympics wastes more money on ICANN nonsense

International Olympic Committee lawyers have lodged an official appeal of ICANN’s latest decision to not grant it extra-extra special new gTLD protection.
The IOC last week filed a Reconsideration Request asking the ICANN board to rethink an April 10 decision that essentially ignored the latest batch of “.olympic” special pleading.
As previously reported, ICANN’s GNSO Council recently spent a harrowing couple of meetings trying to grant the Olympic and Red Cross trademarks even more protection than they already get.
Among other things, the recommendations would have protected strings confusingly similar to “.olympic” at the top level in the new gTLD program.
But a month ago the ICANN board of directors’ newly created, non-conflicted new gTLD program committee declined to approve the GNSO Council’s recommendations.
The committee pointed out in its rationale that the application window is pretty much closed, making changes to the Applicant Guidebook potentially problematic:

a change of this nature to the Applicant Guidebook nearly three months into the application window – and after the date allowed for registration in the system – could change the basis of the application decisions made by entities interested in the New gTLD Program

It also observed that there was still at that time an open public comment period into the proposed changes, which tended to persuade them to maintain the status quo.
The decision was merely the latest stage of an ongoing farce that I went into much more detail about here.
But apparently not the final stage.
With its Reconsideration Request (pdf), the IOC points out that changes to the Applicant Guidebook have always been predicted, even at this late stage. The Guidebook even has a disclaimer to that effect.
The standard for a Reconsideration Request, which is handled by a board committee, is that the adverse decision was made without full possession of the facts. I can’t see anything in this request that meets this standard.
The IOC reckons the lack of special protections “diverts resources away from the fulfillment of this unique, international humanitarian mission”, stating in its request:

The ICANN Board Committee’s failure to adopt the recommended protection at this time would subject the International Olympic Committee and its National Olympic Committees to costly and burdensome legal proceedings that, as a matter of law, they should not have to rely upon.

Forgive me if I call bullshit.
The Applicant Guidebook already protects the string “.olympic” in over a dozen languages – making it ineligible for delegation – which is more protection than any other organization gets.
But let’s assume for a second that a cybersquatter applies for .olympics (plural) which isn’t specially protected. I’m willing to bet that this isn’t going to happen, but let’s pretend it will.
Let’s also assume that the Governmental Advisory Committee didn’t object to the .olympics application, on the IOC’s behalf, for free. The GAC definitely would object, but let’s pretend it didn’t.
A “costly and burdensome” Legal Rights Objection – which the IOC would easily win – would cost the organization just $2,000, plus the cost of paying a lawyer to write a 20-page complaint.
It has already spent more than this lobbying for special protections that it does not need.
The law firm that has been representing the IOC at ICANN, Silverberg, Goldman & Bikoff, sent at least two lawyers to ICANN’s week-long meeting in Costa Rica this March.
Which client(s) paid for this trip? How much did it cost? Did the IOC bear any of the burden?
How much is the IOC paying Bikoff to pursue this Reconsideration Request? How much has it spent lobbying ICANN and national governments these last few years?
What’s the hourly rate for sitting on the GNSO team that spent weeks coming up with the extra special protections that the board rejected?
How much “humanitarian” cash has the IOC already pissed away lining the pockets of lawyers in its relentless pursuit of, at best, a Pyrrhic victory?

How NCC plans to revolutionize domain name security with .secure gTLD

The proposed .secure generic top-level domain is now officially contested, after NCC Group, best known in the domain industry for its data escrow services, announced a bid.
Newly formed NCC subsidiary Artemis Internet Inc, based in San Francisco, is the official applicant.
According to Artemis chief technology officer Alex Stamos, who co-founded security testing firm iSEC Partners and sold it to NCC for $22.8 million two years ago, this is a hard security play.
The .secure gTLD would be all about enforcing strict security policies on registrants, he said.
“Right now there are a lot of interesting security technologies out there, but they’re generally not very effective because they’re optional,” he said.
As well as premium pricing and a manual registrant verification process expected to take about two weeks – complete with mailing address confirmation and two-factor authentication tokens – Artemis plans to force registrants to adhere to certain baseline security policies.
For example, all .secure web sites would have to be completely HTTPS, Stamos said. The only permissible use of a standard port 80 URL would be to redirect to the encrypted site.
The same would go for mail servers – they’d all have to use TLS to encrypt email as standard.
“When you go to bank.secure you’ll know that the software and servers at the other end are going to make the most secure decisions possible,” Stamos said.
Artemis would scan its registrants’ sites for compliance with these baseline rules, looking out for things such as botched SSL implementations.
But Artmeis wants to take it a step further. It is also proposing a new protocol, Domain Policy Framework, which would let registrants publish their security policies in the DNS.
Stamos said the company has set up a Domain Policy Working Group to develop the spec, which it plans to submit to the IETF for standardization before the end of the year.
The other members of the working group, which promise to include some “influential” names in financial services, software and social media, will be announced in July.
DPF would work alongside the existing DNSSEC and DANE protocols to enable registrants to specify, for example, which Certificate Authorities browsers should trust when accessing their .secure domain, preventing certain types of attacks, Stamos said.
Obviously, this system is not going to work without support from browser software, but Stamos said he’s hopeful that the big vendors will embrace the DPF spec.
“The most innovative and forward-leaning browsers will support it first,” he said.
Domains in .secure would still be accessible by non-compliant browsers, he said.
ARI Registry Services has been hired to manage the back-end registry, but Artemis is also building a secondary registry system for storing the DPF records, which it plans to offer to other TLD registries.
NCC plans to invest up to £6 million ($9.7 million) in Artmeis over the next 15 months, according to a press release.
Another firm, Domain Security Company, also plans to apply for .secure.

ICANN not done with TAS bug analysis

Despite sending out hundreds of notifications to new gTLD applicants today, it looks rather like ICANN’s analysis of the TLD Application System bug is not yet complete.
(MAY 10 UPDATE — in a statement today, ICANN provided significantly more information about the notification process, rendering much of the speculation originally in this post moot. Read it here.)

TAS to reopen May 22. Big Reveal on for Prague?

ICANN’s bug-plagued TLD Application System will reopen on May 22 and close on May 30, according to a statement just issued by chief operating officer Akram Atallah.
The dates, which are only “targets”, strongly suggest that that the Big Reveal of all new gTLD applications is going to happen during the public meeting in Prague in late June.
If ICANN still needs two weeks to collate its application data before the reveal, we’re looking at June 14, or thereabouts, as the earliest possible reveal date.
But that’s just ten days before ICANN 44 officially kicks off, and I think it’s pretty unlikely ICANN will want to be distracted by a special one-off event while it’s busy preparing for Prague.
For the Big Reveal, my money is on June 25.
Atallah also said this morning that all new gTLD applicants have now been notified whether they were affected by the TAS bug, meaning ICANN has “met our commitment to provide notice to all users on or before 8 May”.
That said, some applicants I spoke to this morning, hours after it was already May 9 in California, said they had not received the promised notifications. But who’s counting?
The results of ICANN’s analysis of the bug appear to show that no nefarious activity was going on.
“We have seen no evidence that any TAS user intentionally did anything wrong in order to be able to see other users’ information,” Atallah said.
ICANN has also discovered another affected TAS user, in addition to the 50 already disclosed, according to Atallah’s statement.

Demand Media mum on $18m new gTLDs investment

Demand Media has invested $18 million in new generic top-level domains, but it won’t disclose whether it has spent all of the money on application fees.
The company, which owns number two domain name registrar eNom, held its first-quarter earnings conference call this evening, during which it revealed the investment.
A roughly $18 million investment could mean as many as 100 new gTLD applications, but Demand executives refused to elaborate on its plans.
CFO Charles Hilliard said that new gTLDs are seen as a “significant strategic growth opportunity” and that Demand would provide more details upon the closure of ICANN’s application window.
As Mike Berkens has already suggested tonight on TheDomains, a massive investment in application fees seems to be the most plausible use for the money.
The fact that the whole of the investment appears to have been made in April would support this view.
But CEO Richard Rosenblatt also confirmed during the call that the company has now also entered into the registry services provider business, providing the back-end for other applicants.
It does not appear to have been particularly successful attracting clients. Rosenblatt said that Demand has created a back-end platform and “signed our first two strategic customers”.
Just two clients would put Demand at the low end of the registry service provider rankings in this first new gTLD round.
I’m aware of at least one applicant that changed its mind about partnering with the company for its application.
ICANN’s background checks on new gTLD applicants include probes into, among other things, adverse cybersquatting decisions under the UDRP.
Demand Media, as a massive domain registrant, gets hit by UDRP complaints fairly regularly, and some have said it’s lost enough to be disqualified from running a registry under ICANN’s rules.
As far as I’m aware, it’s currently an open question whether hiding UDRP losses and applications behind subsidiaries will be enough to evade these background checks.
But if Demand is prepared to pump $18 million into applications, it must have a pretty good inkling that it won’t tumble at the first hurdle.

ICANN affirms full refunds for pissed-off gTLD applicants, silent on new CEO

ICANN’s board of directors has approved full refunds for any new gTLD applicant that asks for one – something that the organization has already been offering for over a month.
At its two-day retreat in Amsterdam this weekend, the board’s New gTLD Program Committee resolved:

to offer to applicants a full refund of the New gTLD Application fee actually paid to ICANN if the applicant wishes to withdraw its application prior to the date that ICANN publicly posts the identification of all TLD applications.

The date of the Big Reveal, when the names of every applicant and every applied-for gTLD will be publicly posted and the refunds will no longer be available, has not yet been set.
While the resolution refers to the TLD Application System data leakage bug, the refund does not appear to be restricted to directly affected applicants. Anyone can claim it.
However, as regular DI readers know, ICANN had been offering full refunds to applicants that withdraw before the Big Reveal for weeks before the TAS bug emerged.
ICANN customer services reps told DI and at least one gTLD applicant in March that: “Applications withdrawn prior to the posting of the applied-for strings are qualified for a $180000 refund”.
ICANN said in a statement today:

We recognize that this represents an increase of only US $5000 over the refund that withdrawing applicants would otherwise receive, but we believe it is an important part of fulfilling our commitment to treat applicants fairly.

Under the terms of the Applicant Guidebook, the maximum refund available after the Reveal is $148,000.
In other news from Amsterdam…
The ICANN board has decided to let director Thomas Narten join the New gTLD Program Committee, which comprises all of the board members without new gTLD conflicts of interest.
Narten had been barred from the recently formed committee because he worked for IBM, which planned to apply for one or more new gTLDs.
But the board said he has now “mitigated the previously-identified conflict of interest with respect to the New gTLD Program”, so he gets to join the committee as a non-voting liaison.
It’s not clear from the weekend’s resolution why Narten is no longer conflicted. Two obvious possibilities spring to mind.
There was no news from Amsterdam on ICANN’s CEO hunt.
Incumbent Rod Beckstrom intends to “hand the baton” to his successor at the Prague meeting in late June, and the board already has a favored candidate lined up to replace him.
I understand that this candidate did attend the Amsterdam board retreat, albeit under a veil of secrecy lest his or her identity leak out before official confirmation.
But I also understand that the board has decided to move super-cautiously on the CEO decision, in order to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.