ARI confirms place in Big Four with 161 gTLD bids

ARI Registry Services has signed up to provide registry services for 161 new generic top-level domain applications.
The announcement this morning confirms that the domain name industry now has a Big Four – at least – set of dominant gTLD back-end providers.
ARI said it has signed 85 generic, 70 brand and 6 geographic gTLDs applications. CEO Adrian Kinderis said in a statement:

Non-disclosure statements restrict me from revealing our full client list at this point in time, but what I can say is that our technology will support some of the world’s largest and most recognised brands within the electronics, media, telecommunications, automotive and banking segments.

The company, part of the AusRegistry Group, was previously only known for its .au registry and some software consulting work on internationalized ccTLDs. It had expected 100 gTLD clients.
In Verisign’s most recent Securities and Exchange Commission filings, it has started identifying ARI as one of its key competitors, along with Neustar and Afilias.
Verisign is providing the back-end for 220 applications.
Neustar and Afilias have not yet announced their respective numbers. I expect both figures could quite easily be higher, but maybe not a great deal higher, than Verisign’s.
Top Level Domain Holdings also has not revealed numbers for Minds + Machines, but that’s a slightly different model due to the fact that M+M will also be the applicant in many cases.
With about 1,900 new gTLD applications filed, and barring any surprise back-end announcements, we could well be looking at hundreds of gTLD applications that propose a self-managed registry.

As new gTLDs enter a new phase, the first wave of announcements crashes

Go Daddy, Web.com and the Public Interest Registry were among the first to reveal their new generic top-level domain plans as ICANN’s new gTLD program enters the “reveal” phase.
Announcements from several companies were timed to closely coincide with the closure of ICANN’s TLD Application System at a minute before midnight UTC last night.
After a false start (false end?) on April 12, and weeks of subsequent procrastination, the end of the new gTLD application window seems to have gone off without a hitch.
We’re now entering a new phase of the program, one which is expected to hold far fewer secrets.
Between now and the official Big Reveal, currently targeted for June 13, I’m expecting a deluge of announcements from new gTLD applicants, no longer scared of encouraging competitive bids.
Any company with any hope of standing out from the crowd of almost 2,000 applications needs to make its presence felt as loudly and as early as possible.
.web
The first to do so was number-three registrar Web.com, owner of Network Solutions and Register.com, which confirmed its long-expected bid for .web shortly before midnight.
It’s one of many companies with a claim to the gTLD, in what is certain to be a fiercely fought contention set.
The firm reckons, dubiously, that it has rights due to its trademark on Web.com, which I predict will be anything but a slam dunk argument when it comes to a Legal Rights Objection.
“We believe we possess the natural platform from which to successfully market the new .WEB top level domain since we are the sole owner of the Web.com trademark as issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark office,” CEO David Brown said.
I wonder what the other 300 or so owners of web.[tld] domain names think about that.
.bank and .insurance
The Association of National Bankers and the Financial Services Roundtable, both US trade groups for the banking industry, provided the first post-TAS announcement to hit my inbox, at 0006 UTC.
The groups have confirmed their joint bids for .bank and .insurance, having wisely decided against the less SEO-friendly, less intuitive .banking, .invest, .investment, and .insure.
These proposed gTLDs will be secured and restricted, but they still face the substantial risk of objections from European banking regulators.
There’s also one other unconfirmed .bank applicant.
.home and .casa
Go Daddy has also revealed its two applications, giving the scoop to Domain Name Wire. It’s applied for .home and the Spanish translation, .casa, in addition to the previously announced .godaddy.
While they look benign on the face of it, I’m expecting .home to face opposition on technical grounds.
It’s on DI PRO’s list of frequently requested invalid TLDs, due to the amount of traffic it already gets from misconfigured routers.
Go Daddy may also face competition scrutiny if it wants to act as a registry and registrar, given its overwhelming dominance of the registrar market.
Both applications are also likely to find themselves in contention sets.
.ngo and .ong
The Public Interest Registry cleverly got its .ngo and .ong bids some big-readership attention a few hours ago by letting Mashable think it was getting a scoop. Ahem.
To be fair, the .ong application – a translation of .ngo for Spanish, French and Italian markets – was news. Both will target non-governmental organizations, of which there are millions.
The .ong bid stands a reasonable chance of being challenged due to its visual similarity with .org – which PIR already manages – but ICANN’s similarity tool only gives it a score of 63%.
.cloud and .global
Finally this morning, CloudNames announced applications for .cloud and .global, two unrestricted gTLDs being pitched explicitly as alternatives to .com, .biz and .info.
“A .cloud domain will allow businesses and individuals to have their own cloud on the Internet. Likewise, a .global domain will allow businesses to secure a position on an international level,” CEO Rolf Larsen said in a statement.
They’re the first examples of both strings to be announced, but CloudNames expects them both to be contested. I suspect the buzzy .cloud will be the harder to obtain.

Olympic domain watch list shows hundreds of squats, legit names too

Lawyers for the International Olympic Committee have released a list of hundreds of domain names allegedly cybersquatting the Olympic trademark, all registered in just a couple of weeks.
But as well as showing that there are hundreds of idiots out there, the list also sheds light on substantial numbers of apparently legitimate uses of the word “olympic” by small businesses.
The insight comes from two weekly zone file monitoring reports, compiled for the IOC by Thomson Compumark, which were circulated to an ICANN working group this week.
There are about 300 domains on the lists. At first glance, it looks like the IOC has a serious problem on its hands.
According to IOC outside counsel Jim Bikoff:

These unauthorized registrations–often for pornographic, phishing, gambling or parked sites–dilute and tarnish the Olympic trademarks, and attempt to exploit for commercial gain the good will created by the Olympic Movement. The unauthorized domains already oblige the IOC and its National Olympic Committees to expend significant amounts of time and money on monitoring and enforcement activities.

Based on a perusal of the lists and a non-exhaustive, non-scientific sampling of the sites the domains lead to, I’d say a comfortable majority are fairly straightforward cases of bad faith.
I couldn’t find any porn or phishing, but most of the domains I checked either do not resolve or resolve to placeholder or parking pages. If they resolved to a developed site, it was usually a splog.
However, a non-trivial minority of the domains are being used by apparently legitimate small businesses that have absolutely no connection to sports whatsoever.
Check out, for example, olympic-grill.com, olympicautorecycling.com, olympicbuildersgc.com, olympicco.com, olympiclandscapes.com, olympicrollingshutters.com, or olympicpromotions.info.
These are domains all apparently registered in the same week, and all appear to be kosher uses of domain names (though the logo choice at olympicpromotions.info is just begging for trouble).
A fair number of the domains on the list appear to be re-registrations of domains that have previously expired, judging by historical Whois records.
One would imagine that if there was value in cybersquatting a nice-looking domain such as 2012olympicstickets.com, for example, the former squatter probably wouldn’t have let it go.
Perhaps the “best” typo I found on the list, ollympics.com, is registered to a British guy called Olly. Assuming that’s his actual name, it seems like pretty good evidence of good faith.
The IOC, incidentally, has only ever filed 15 UDRP cases, on average fewer than two per year, so claims about spending “significant amounts” on enforcement are questionable.

As TAS closes, ICANN reveals new gTLD runway

ICANN has confirmed plans to open up the next phase of its new generic top-level domain program next week.
The controversial “digital archery” process, used to assign priority batches to applications, will begin June 8 and end June 28, according to a statement issued in the early hours of this morning.
That means digital archery will close the same day as ICANN’s public meeting in Prague ends.
The results of the batching will not be revealed until July 11.
And ICANN has confirmed that June 13 is indeed the date for the Big Reveal, when details of all the applications will be published for public perusal, as we reported Friday.
That would make June 12 or thereabouts the deadline for getting a full $185,000 refund.
Applicants have until a minute before midnight UTC tonight to finalize their applications if they have not done so already. Then, the TLD Application System closes for at least a few years.
Surprisingly, as many as a quarter of the anticipated 2,000+ applications were not yet complete as of last night, according to ICANN.

As of today, over 500 applications remain incomplete in TAS – either a complete application has not been submitted, and/or the full fee has not been paid. If you have not completed your application, we urge you to do so in TAS as quickly as possible.

Let’s hope the upgrades ICANN made to TAS are sufficient to handle a hammering today as so many applicants log in to the system.

New gTLD reveal day is probably June 13

ICANN is set to reveal its list of new generic top-level domain applications on or around June 13, according to several sources.
My understanding is that the date has not yet been set in stone – it could be a day or so either side – but that June 13 is the current target.
The unveiling of all 2,000+ applications is expected to be accompanied by a press conference and panel discussion in London, both of which will be webcast for those unable to attend in person.
Confirming the venue for this event is, I believe, one of the factors contributing to the current uncertainty about the date.
A June 13 date means that the “digital archery” batching process will – barring unforeseen circumstances – kick off at some point during the first two weeks of June and end after the reveal.
ICANN said earlier this week that the archery process will start before reveal day and will last for three weeks.

New gTLD applicant asks for money back

At least one new generic top-level domain applicant has requested a full $185,000 refund of its application fee, according to ICANN.
This exchange is from last night’s Twitter chat with ICANN executives:

@icann Has anyone asked for a refund yet? #icannchat

— Kevin Murphy (@DomainIncite) May 22, 2012

A11: As of last night we had received two new requests for refund since full refund offer: one for $185k & one for $5K #newgTLD #ICANNchat

— ICANN (@ICANN) May 22, 2012

It’s interesting that the answer was qualified with “since full refund offer”, suggesting there may have been more requests for refunds prior to ICANN’s decision to up the maximum refund from $180,000 to $185,000.
It’s not known which applicant asked for the refund or why.

Digital Archery lessons from tonight’s tweet-up

ICANN held a Twitter session tonight during which executives answered questions about the new gTLD program in that notoriously restrictive 140-character format.
Unsurprisingly, in light of the frustration borne out of ongoing delays, most of the questions were about timing.
New gTLD applicants wanted to know when ICANN plans to host its Big Reveal event, when the Digital Archery application batching system will open, and when the batches will be confirmed.
The only specific date applicants were given was May 29, which is when ICANN plans to publish its updated program timetable.

A15: Additional schedule details to be posted by 29 May. – @rodbeckstrom #newgTLD #ICANN #ICANNchat

— ICANN (@ICANN) May 22, 2012

But @ICANN gave away enough information to make a broad estimate about the date digital archery will commence.
First, ICANN confirmed that the Big Reveal will be before its public meeting in Prague kicks off on June 23.

A8: Update on timeline to be published shortly. Target reveal date still before Prague. – @rodbeckstrom #newgTLD #ICANN #ICANNchat

— ICANN (@ICANN) May 22, 2012

ICANN also said that the digital archery process will begin before the reveal day and finish after.

A1: Secondary timestamp (digarchery) scheduled 2 open b4 reveal day & close aftr. Designed for reliability & timeliness #ICANNchat #newgTLD

— ICANN (@ICANN) May 22, 2012

A6: #ICANN will publish batches after the reveal, after the digital archery process is complete. – @rodbeckstrom #ICANNchat #newgTLD

— ICANN (@ICANN) May 22, 2012

The archery window will be open for about three weeks, we learned.

A12: The secondary timestamp process will be open for approx 3 weeks, details later. – @rodbeckstrom #newgTLD #ICANN #ICANNchat

— ICANN (@ICANN) May 22, 2012

We can draw some broad conclusions from this information.
The latest possible date for the Big Reveal, given what ICANN said tonight, is June 22 (the Friday before Prague), so the latest possible date for the digital archery window opening is June 21.
In that case, digital archery would run June 21 – July 12, or thereabouts.
Because the archery can’t start before the applications are all submitted, the earliest window would be May 31 – June 20.
My estimates err towards the lower end. I think we’re looking at archery starting within a week of the application window closing and ending immediately before or during Prague.
If ICANN decides that it wants the archery out of the way before the meeting begins, the window could have to open as early as May 31.
If it wants the window to close post-Prague, we’re looking at it opening around June 11.

TAS reopens after humiliating 40 days

Forty days after it was taken offline for a bug fix, ICANN has reopened its TLD Application System, giving new gTLD applicants a week to finish off their applications.
TAS will now close May 30 at 2359 UTC, which is 1559 in California next Wednesday afternoon.
But applicants are being warned that waiting until the final day “may not provide sufficient time to complete all submission steps before the submission period closes.”
The date of the Big Reveal of applications, which I’m now expecting to come at some point before the Prague meeting at the end of June, is likely to be confirmed in the next day or so.
As well as fixing the bug – a data leakage vulnerability that enabled applicants to see each others’ file names, affecting over 150 users – ICANN has made system performance improvements and cleaned up its HTML preview function, in response to user complaints.
Repairing the vulnerability has cost ICANN “hundreds of thousands of dollars” since TAS was taken offline April 12, chief operating officer Akram Atallah estimated last Thursday.
The fact that the system has reopened half a day ahead of the most recently scheduled deadline – it was due to open at 1900 UTC tonight – is unlikely to win ICANN many plaudits.
If the opinions of the opinionated are any guide, the TAS outage has left ICANN with a severe dent in its already patchy reputation, even among fervent supporters.
Atallah and senior vice president Kurt Pritz came in for a pummeling during an ICANN summit attended by registrars and registries, many of them gTLD applicants, late last week.
Several outspoken long-time community members made it clear that their confidence in ICANN’s ability to hit deadlines is at an all-time low.
Expectations of professionalism have increased, as AusRegistry CEO Adrian Kinderis told Atallah, now that ICANN has $350 million of applicant cash in its bank account.
The bug itself may have been as unavoidable and understandable as any bug in new software, but ICANN’s tardiness resolving the problem has left applicant trust in many cases shattered.

Another contention battle confirmed as Starting Dot reveals five gTLD bids

Portfolio gTLD applicant Starting Dot is to apply to ICANN for five new generic top-level domains, catering mostly to vertical industries and professions.
The France-based company wants .archi, .bio, .design, .immo and .ski.
The first thing to note is that we now have another confirmed contention set – Starting Dot’s .immo application is not the same .immo announced by Nic.at a few weeks ago.
The word “immo” is apparently an abbreviation for “real estate” commonly used in Germany, France and Italy. The gTLD would be reserved for members of that sector.
The .archi gTLD would be reserved for certified architects. It’s backed by the International Architectural Union, a Paris-based umbrella trade group which represents over a million architects.
The .bio proposal, pitched at the food and agricultural industries, anticipates a semi-regulated namespace, while .design would be open to anyone with an interest in that topic.
For .ski, Starting Dot has partnered with Adrenaline TLD, which originally planned to file for five extreme sports gTLDs, on a joint-venture app.
As I blogged earlier today, Adrenaline founder Rob Rozicki now works for the new gTLD marketing firm DomainDiction, which seems to have signed Starting Dot as one of its first clients.

DomainDiction hires industry vets to market gTLDs

DomainDiction, a new marketing company set up to help new generic top-level domain registries, officially launches today.
The largely European company, headed by France-based CEO Jennie-Marie Larsen, says it is “the first marketing consultancy dedicated solely to Top Level Domains”.
Larsen started off her career in the domain name industry at NeuStar, and was most recently chief marketing officer at the new gTLD business management firm Sedari.
Fellow industry veteran Pinky Brand, who helped launch .mobi and was revealed last week to have left registry manager Afilias, is DomainDiction’s new chief strategy officer.
Larsen said in a press release:

DomainDiction´s expertise is multi-channel, international domain marketing. By utilizing a wide range of marketing tools, we are able to offer innovative strategies and outreach programs across each phase from sunrise, landrush, to renewals. We leverage our close registrar channel relationships, international PR, online marketing, and complex SEO & PPC strategies to ensure success for each TLD.

Also on the team: John Kirkham (formerly with HostEurope), Tina Lord (former CMO of EasySpace), Henry Lewington (Barracuda Digital) and Christoph Hausel (whose agency, Element C, has previously worked for Afilias and NeuStar).
Rob Rozicki, who a couple of years ago made a lot of noise about applying for five sports-based gTLDs (.skate, .ski, .board, etc) is on board as head of North American online marketing.
While DomainDiction is certainly the first pure-play new gTLD marketing outfit that I can think of, the company will face competition from traditional PR firms and other gTLD consultancies.
Architelos, which made over a million dollars consulting with new gTLD applicants over the application period, recently launched its own marketing service, Velocity.
DomainDiction is set to launch this afternoon.