YNOT – When the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers announced the details about 1,930 new generic Top Level Domain applications last week, it set in motion more than a round of eye-rolling and groans from owners of current domain names. For the first time, major internet players could find themselves facing off with equally well-financed opponents over the right to claim uncharted virtual territory.
“We are standing at the cusp of a new era of online innovation,” ICANN PresidentChief Executive Officer Rod Beckstrom said during a press conference announcing the new gTD applications. “That means new businesses, new marketing tools, new jobs and new ways to link communities and share information.”
Before any of that can happen, though, contracts must be awarded — and in quite a few cases, competing applicants for the same domain string may have to go head-to-head in winner-takes-all battles.
ICM Registry, operator of the controversial dot-xxx registry, could be in one of the confrontations. The Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based company applied for three additional strings during the first round of gTLD applications: dot-adult, dot-porn and dot-sex. It faces competition for dot-sex from Internet Marketing Solutions Ltd., based in the British Virgin Islands. A substantially similar string — dot-sexy, proposed by Frank Schilling’s Uniregistry Corp. — also may butt heads with dot-sex on the same playing field, as ICANN has vowed not to allow the coexistence of strings that could generate confusion.
The three entities may not know until early next year whether any or all of them have passed the application evaluation process, already farmed out to special committees of experts. ICANN hopes to have all 1,930 gTLD applications from 60 countries and territories evaluated by December.
If all three entities vying for dot-sex(y) pass the 60-day public comment period that opened June 13 and will close in August and their applications meet ICANN muster, they have three options for solving the conflict: two of them voluntarily drop out, two or more of them form a joint venture to operate the gTLD as a single entity, or they let dot-sex(y) go to auction.
According to Module 4 of ICANN’s gTLD Applicant Guidebook, auctions are a discouraged last resort. ICANN is a nonprofit organization, after all, and stray millions generated by gTLD auctions could jeopardize its status.
Other proposed gTLDs that face contention include game, shop, book, search, family, free, shop, store and app. The latter drew applications from 13 different entities, including Uniregistry, Amazon EU S.a.r.l. and Google, whose applications were submitted by “Charleston Road Registry Inc.”
Independently, Uniregistry, Amazon EU and Google applied for more domains than any other applicants. Uniregistry appears on the application list 81 times. Amazon submitted 77 applications, and Google covets more than 100 gTLDs; both Amazon and Google included Asian character strings in their gTLD applications.
Some of the strings may be challenged for reasons having nothing to do with duplication. Amazon EU’s application for dot-imdb, for example, seems sure to be challenged by the Internet Movie Database, which considers “IMDB” its intellectual property.
