Archive for the ‘new top level domains’ Category
.Nxt moves across the pond.
The third .Nxt conference covering issues related to new top level domains takes place June 20-22 at Victoria Park Plaza in London.
I caught up with show founder Kieren McCarthy yesterday to discuss his latest show.
After holding two conferences in San Francisco, McCarthy said a number of interested attendees asked him to hold a show in Europe. With ICANN holding a meeting in Prague starting June 24, McCarthy felt that a stop of in London made sense. (It doesn’t hurt that McCarthy is from London.)
Like those applying for new TLDs, ICANN’s TAS snafu and subsequent timeline delay is forcing .Nxt to constantly shake up its programming. It had hoped to have a list of all new TLD applicants by now. But that list is at least a couple weeks away from being published. It’s possible it won’t even be out by the time .Nxt takes place.
“ICANN’s issue has made life a little bit more difficult,” explained McCarthy. “But that’s ICANN. We should have known better.”
The conference includes tracks about new gTLDs themselves as well as about internet governance.
“All of these companies that are about to become registries, whether they know it or not, need to become aware of the internet governance world,” said McCarthy. He said that decisions being made by people and groups they don’t know yet will have a huge impact on their businesses.
“People just seem to think the internet will go along as it has always gone along,” he said.
McCarthy thinks the session “SOPA and What it Means for the Future of Internet Policy” will be particularly interesting. A session on “Why We Love (and Hate) the Multi-stakeholder Model” should also attract some spirited discussion.
A session about .brand should be well attended if, as many consultants predict, 60% or so of applications are from brands.
McCarthy also says he has a great keynote lined up that will hopefully be revealed in the next week.
McCarthy expects 175-200 people to attend. He was expecting more until the ICANN timeline got pushed back, but pitches five reasons people should attend.
3-day passes are £599.00 through June 12.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.
Related posts:
- Domain Conference Heads for the Rockies
ICANN has already collected $350 million in new TLD application fees. And that number will grow.
One of the mysteries of ICANN’s new top level domain process is why it’s been so shy about releasing the total number of applications received so far. It released the number of application system registered users, but not the number of applications.
That just changed: ICANN announced it had 2,091 applications completed or in progress when it took the application system down for security issue. ICANN says there are another 214 potential applications for which payments had not been received or reconciled.
ICANN has already collected $350 million in application fees. That means even its “high” budget scenario released this week is too low.
ICANN will collect well more money per application than it needs to cover historical costs. It also means we’re probably looking at five or more batches of top level domains within the digital archery system.
This may be a very bad thing for ICANN. I can see senators’ phones ringing right now.
“They’ve got how much money?”
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.
Related posts:
- What in the World Will ICANN Do with $100 Million Cash Next Year?
- Wow: 839 entities signed up for ICANN’s new top level domain system
- .XXX Has Grossed $10 Million Already [Updated]
Main ICANN budget still assumes 500 applications.
In January ICANN released its framework for the FY 2013 budget (which begins in July). Its framework for new TLD revenue was based on 500 applications for new top level domains.
ICANN just published its draft budget and now it’s budgeting for…
only 500 applications.
I realize these things have a long lead time, but this is ludicrous. It’s quite clear there will be over 1,000 applications for new top level domains.
Releasing a budget based on less than half of that makes no sense.
To be fair, ICANN has also released variance analysis showing what the numbers would look like with 1,000 and 2,000 applications. But I would think they’d go ahead and put at minimum the 1,000 scenario as the crux of its budget.
And in the magic of ICANN finance, the historical costs of the program increase when you add in more domain applications.
Under the 500 application scenario, the historical costs of the program are $12.5 million. Under the 1000 application scenario the historical costs are $25.0 million, so it appears on paper that the program is still cost-neutral. If there are 2000 applications then the historical costs are $29.9 million.
What’s really going on here is ICANN says the total historical costs are $29.9 million. It has budgeted $25,000 per application in historical cost recovery. So if there are fewer than 1,196 applications then it will just eat some of these historical costs.
Regardless, it’s all funny money because the historical costs component will be transferred back to the “core” of ICANN and placed into its reserve fund.
By the way, if ICANN ends up making excess money from the program due to more applications than expected or lower legal costs, it will ask the community what it should do with the extra money.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.
Related posts:
- ICANN to Charge $185,000 for New TLD Applications
- $85k of your $185k new gTLD app goes to phantom costs
- ICANN’s Enron-esque Math Shows a Loss on New TLDs
They may have meaning but are very similar to .com.
A number of country codes, such as .cm and .co, can result in misguided visitors looking for a .com web address.
Will we see some other domains that could be considered typos push their way through the new top level domain process?
I first thought of this when I wrote about .cpm. An online ad company is trying to trademark the term, which stands for “cost per thousand”.
As readers pointed out to me, .cpm is just one key away from .com on the keyboard.
.CMO is another possible domain that could be applied for an could also be a typo. CMO stands for Chief Marketing Officer.
Both .cpm and .cmo score high for similarity to numerous strings based on ICANN’s sword tool.
The most ironic .com typo would be .con. N is just one letter off from M on the keyboard. But it legitimately could be applied for with the idea of it standing for “conference”.
I suspect there are a lot more examples in non Latin scripts.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.
Related posts:
- Full Tilt Poker Has Its Name Back, Now Gets Typos Too
Mystery company files trademarks for .wedding, .club, and .discount.
California’s What Box? Holdings, LLC has applied for three more top level domain name trademarks with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The three applications are:
.Wedding – filed September 27
.Club – filed October 3
.Discount – filed October 3
Little is know about the company other than its lawyer being Thomas A. Brackey, II. The company was formed September 1.
My guess is this is not an actual applicant for new top level domains, so don’t read too much into the applications. Given that this entity has already filed a trademark application for .hawaii — a top level domain that would require the blessing of Hawaii’s government — I don’t think there’s a rhyme or reason to the filings.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.
Related posts:
- dotSPORT Continues its Trademark Frontrunning
- Up Next, Trademark Applications for .Auto, .Tax, and .Food
- Trademark Application Filed for .Bank Top Level Domain Name
The “ticking time bomb” in new TLDs continues with no work from ICANN.
New top level domain name trademark “frontrunning” continues as 9 more trademarks have been filed related to new TLDs.
USM CHINA/HONG KONG LTD filed applications for .Hub, .Tom, Kom, and .Kom. The Kom trademark applications are troubling given VeriSign’s plans to apply for transliterations of .com. And .Tom? Sounds a lot like .com.
Thomas A Brackey of Beverly Hills filed three separate trademark applications for .law. A business called Dot Construction LLC, which has Brackey’s same address, filed to trademark application for .construction.
I think these TLD trademark applications, some of which have slipped through the examiners hands, represent a huge problem for new top level domain names. Trademark holders will use them to their advantage.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.
Related posts:
- .Music Initiative Says It Will Use Trademarks to Block Competitors
- Go Daddy Files Trademarks, Tips Its Hand
- Companies File Trademarks for New Top Level Domain Names
New TLD application window slated to begin in January 2012.
ICANN’s Board of Directors is about to vote on approving the new top level domain name program.
One thing that’s clear is that, even if the program is approved, there’s still a lot of work to be done. The resolution being considered includes more discussions on registry-registrar separation, assistance to applicants that don’t have enough money, etc.
If it approves the resolution, the timeline will be as follows:
Today – communication period begins (marketing)
January 12, 2012 – officially opens, applications accepted
April 12, 2012 – application window closes
November 2012 – initial evaluations published
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.
Related posts:
- ICANN to Charge $185,000 for New TLD Applications
- dotBerlin Wants Special Status with New gTLDs Because of Its Early Involvement
- ICANN Approves EURid’s Agreement for .eu Domain Name
Organization says it still might be able to move ahead with program next month.
ICANN’s Board thinks it might still be able to approve the new top level domain name program at the beginning of next month’s meeting in Singapore.
The approval was put into doubt after comments from government officials.
But ICANN and the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) just released a joint statement about another “productive meeting” between the two of them. The statement concludes:
The latest discussion and ICANN Board and GAC agreement on the benefits of having a face-to-face meeting in Singapore pave the way to possible Board consideration of program approval on 20 June 2011.
If the program is approved on June 20, I can guarantee you that ICANN will make significant concessions to the GAC between now and then. Those concessions will mostly be in favor of trademark interests.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.
Related posts:
- ICANN Plans to Vote on Final New TLD Guidebook in June
- June ICANN Meeting Moves to Singapore
- ICANN: Definitely No Vote on New TLDs at March Meeting
Economic studies about new top level domain names are futile.
Depending on which transcripts I read from the ICANN meeting in Colombia this week, ICANN has spent $1 million to $2 million on economic studies about new top level domain names to date.
This is money wasted. Not just because the reports — particularly the first two — were extremely weak. But because getting an answer will require too many baseless assumptions. In other words, the exercise is futile.
The first two major reports were a joke and seriously tarnished the reputation of ICANN. The first report from Dennis Carlton was a complete whitewash. It was like when companies commission a whitepaper to reinforce their stated point of view and pitch their product. Then ICANN paid more for Carlton to re-evaluate his first report. Not surprisingly, Carlton’s re-evaluation agreed with his first report.
Then ICANN turned to different lead researchers (although through the same main outfit) for another round. The new analysis is certainly better than the first. There’s plenty to find at fault with the latest “study”, but I think the conclusions are on target.
So Why is ICANN spending domain registrants’ money on these reports? Because it has to. In an effort to slow down or derail the new TLD process, opponents are making what I call the “economic study” argument. They say that the benefits and costs of introducing new TLDs must be quantified, or at least shown that the benefits outweigh the costs, before going forward.
This is impossible. We know there are potential benefits. And guaranteed costs. But figuring out what those are is never going to happen in advance of releasing new TLDs.
Benefits:
-Money for the domain channel. New TLD applicants make money, registries make money, registrars make money, ICANN makes money, domain bloggers make money from advertisements, and perhaps some registrants make money, too. That creates jobs and wealth. That’s a benefit. But your guess is as good as mine as to what this adds up to.
-A sense of community. Here I’m referring to both localized TLDs such as .nyc as well as — and more importantly — IDN top level domain names. I’d love to see someone try to put a number on what this is worth to the greater good.
-New ways to use the web. Supposedly some people have nifty ways to use TLDs that are outside the realm of what you can do with them today. I haven’t heard any that can’t be done on a plain-old .com. Seriously, I doubt anyone has thought of the killer application. Yet. But some day someone will. And it could be a game changer.
Costs:
-Trademark holders have to spend money defensively registering domains or even feeling compelled to get their own TLD. How much will this cost? Both sides have tried to quantify it. Proponents of new TLDs come in really low, opponents say it will cost the GDP of a small country. The truth is we don’t and can’t know. Consider this: will the cost be different if there are 10 generic new TLDs versus 500 new generic TLDs?
-User confusion. Lots of people will be confused when they see TLDs they’ve never seen before. They might end up at .com instead. How many people? What will the “cost” be to them? Will they end up getting phished? How much is their time and inconvenience worth? Yeah, put a number on that one.
-Costs to domainers. New rights protections may be abused and use to hurt legitimate domain name owners, even in .com. But then again, .com owners might get a flood of traffic from people looking for the .play equivalent. (I’m including this as a joke. It’s not like this would actually be considered in an economic report.)
-Legal challenges. A lot of money will be spent on lawyers. ICANN is setting aside a third of application fees for this. And there will be more governmental interference in the web. There’s a chance that ICANN could implode, landing the domain name system in a complete mess and control by another entity. Quantify that.
This isn’t a complete list of the benefits and costs of new TLDs. But even with this short list, I think it’s impossible to put a “real” number on it.
© DomainNameWire.com 2010.
Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.
Related posts:
- New Economic Study: Limit New TLD Rounds To Measure Effects
- ICANN Releases Another Economic Study on New TLDs
- ICANN Goes Back to Professor to Clarify New gTLD Demand
New study finds little chance for competition to .com, but some benefits from new TLDs.
Just a day after the U.S. Department of Commerce chastised ICANN for not undertaking a full economic study of the costs and benefits of new top level domains, ICANN has released phase two of its latest study (pdf).
A summary of the findings:
“…we find that additional generic, unrestricted TLDs using the Latin alphabet would be unlikely to provide significant additional competition for .com. However, because of their potential benefits—discussed below—differentiated offerings might provide such competition…”
“…we do not find evidence that scarcity of generic second-level domain names is a pervasive problem; in a high percentage of cases studied, generic terms are unregistered or unused on several different gTLDs. This pattern may arise because multiple TLDs and second-level names such as car, cars, autos, automobiles, etc. all are potential substitutes available to website creators.”
“although many of the benefits associated with Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) can be realized through the use of second-level IDNs, the benefits of top-level IDNs derived from reduced confusion, increased convenience, and the psychic benefits of inclusion could be meaningful. Second, the potential benefits from gTLDs that differentiate themselves either by being community-based or by employing restrictions on registrants or on the use of second-level domains within the gTLDs, could in, theory be substantial and, by their nature, the benefits of innovative new services are impossible to predict. However, as the case study of .mobi illustrates, the size of such benefits in practice will depend on whether there are other ways to achieve the primary objectives of the proposed gTLD, such as the use of second-level domain names or communication between servers and browsers that provide information that substitutes for the information conveyed by the use of the restricted gTLD.”
“We find that some intellectual property (IP) protection mechanisms implemented during a sunrise period can be effective in minimizing the number of claimed trademark infringements, but that poorly implemented procedures can result in large numbers of improper registrations, as happened in .info.”
“it appears that brand owners expend less effort to protect their brands on less popular gTLDs, which is the pattern one would expect if there companies suffer lower costs from infringing activities on less popular gTLDs.”
© DomainNameWire.com 2010.
Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.
Related posts:
- New Economic Study: Limit New TLD Rounds To Measure Effects
- Microsoft, Time Warner, Others Weigh In On New TLDs
- Shocker: ICANN Nixes Expressions of Interest for New TLDs
You can go forward to the next page