M+M wins contract for ‘laptops and lederhosen’ gTLD
Minds + Machines has won governmental approval for its .bayern new gTLD application, according to the company.
The Bavarian state government has said it will back a bid for .bayern from Bayern Connect, which is majority-owned by M+M parent Top Level Domain Holdings, TLDH said today.
According to its press release, M+M will provide the back-end registry services, which strongly suggests that it does not plan to outsource to Neustar on this occasion.
Bayern Connect is not the only company to have announced a .bayern application, however.
Rival applicant PunktBayern, which is backed by United Domains and InterNetX among others, has been public about its plans for a couple of years too. Last year, it selected Afilias to provide its registry back-end.
If the Bavarian government is offering its exclusive support to Bayern Connect, as TLDH now says, it puts a serious question mark over the viability of the PunktBayern bid.
Under ICANN’s rules, any gTLD purporting to represent a state must secure the support or non-objection of the relevant government. Without that support, applications will be rejected.
PunktBayern does have a registered trademark on “.bayern”, however, so the tussle may not be quite over yet.
Bayern is the German name for Bavaria. The state has a population of about 12.5 million and quite a strong sense of its own identity.
It’s often referred to as the land of “laptops and lederhosen” due to a long-running government policy of friendliness to the tech industry.
Afilias signs .bayern deal
PunktBayern has contracted with Afilias to provide its registry back-end and DNS resolution for the .bayern top-level domain, should its application succeed.
The applicant, also known as dotBayern, is one of at least two bidders for the TLD, which is the German word for Bavaria. The other, Bayern Connect, is working with Minds + Machines.
PunktBayern is led by managing director Lothar Kunz and is affiliated with United Domains and Dirk Krischenowski of the .berlin initiative.
As with all geographic TLDs, under ICANN rules the winning bidder will be required to show a letter of support or non-objection from the relevant government.
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