New gTLDs Archives - Page 135 of 141

556 And Counting Registered Users For TLD Application System

The number of registered applicants for ICANN’s online TLD Application System (TAS) reached 556 on 23 March, an increase of 227 in four days!

The number of registered applicants for ICANN’s online TLD Application System (TAS) reached 556 on 23 March, an increase of 227 in four days!And now there are only three days to go until those wishing to apply for a TLD need to register in the TAS. However as ICANN makes clear, this does not necessarily (and will not) represent the total number of applications since each registrant can apply for up to 50 new TLDs.Predictions of 1500 applications for TLDs are looking quite reasonable. However information to back this up is scarce with most brand owners playing their cards close to their chests. But one company, the consultant FairWinds Partners said that their clients are applying for 2.72 TLDs each.As FairWinds note on their blog, if their average of 2.72 TLDs per applicant was the average for applications, then there will be well over 1500 applications.”Some clients are applying for more than 10,” note FairWinds, “while some are applying for just one. These clients are all, for the most part, large companies with major, well-known brands. Some are applying for only ‘dot brand’ gTLDs that correspond to their major business, product, or service names, while others are pursuing generic or category terms as gTLDs. Some are applying for both. We are by no means saying that more gTLDs are better – at this point, until new gTLDs have become an established feature of the domain name space, we cannot know what the ‘right’ number of new gTLDs for any given business or other applicant to pursue is. For some, one application makes perfect sense, while others will likely benefit from applying for more.”

Name.space Claims Trademark Protection Over 482 gTLDs

An American company has filed for trademark protection for a number of its existing portfolio of 482 of what it claims to be gTLDs, many of them plurals of a variety of words.

An American company has filed for trademark protection for a number of its existing portfolio of 482 of what it claims to be generic Internet Top-Level Domains (gTLDs), many of them plurals of a variety of words.Name.space was founded in 1996, and describes themselves as a privately held TLD registry company based in New York City. The company also claims to own the world’s largest exclusive portfolio of gTLDs and that they are the bona-fide originator of hundreds of gTLDs.”This is an exciting day for all of us here at name.space,” said Alex Mashinsky, CEO of name.space. “We have been using these gTLDs in commerce since 1996, and so we already have trademark protection for these and our other gTLDs. But filing for formal recognition is part of our strategy to help the market realize the value of our existing portfolio of gTLDs and the high quality of service name.space provides and that users actively associate with these gTLDs and name.space.”name.space say they will be participating in the 2012 ICANN application round, both to file applications for ICANN recognition of name.space’s gTLDs and to protect name.space’s existing rights. In addition, name.space will apply for ICANN recognition of 118 gTLDs that are still pending from the 2000 application round.Some of those gTLDs name.space will be claiming their rights to include some of the more hotly sought after strings including .MUSIC, .GREEN, .SHOP, .GAY and .NYC. A full list is available on their website here.”ICANN will have to resolve these open applications to preserve the integrity of the application process,” said Paul Garrin, name.space’s founder. “We have noted the plans of other registry hopefuls to participate in the 2012 application round. But none of those other entities has our combination of longstanding origination and use and existing unresolved applications from the 2000 process. That puts us in the leading position.”

Six Days Until TLD Applicants Must Register, But Today For Applications For Multiple Applicants

With six days to go until potential applicants of new Top Level Domains have to register their interest in applying, ICANN has announced that there are 329 registered users in the online TLD Application System (TAS) as of 19 March.But today (23 March) is also the last day for those applying for more than one TLD with the same TAS account. ICANN told Domain Incite that “if an applicant wishes to submit multiple applications, it will need to initiate the registration process several days in advance of the application window.”However this is not the total number of applicants as each registered user can submit up to 50 applications for a TLD.Who has applied for what will not be known until early May, approximately two weeks after the TLD application window closes when ICANN will publish a list of the applications and who has applied for which domain name.

South Australia Says TLD Costs Are Too High To Justify

The South Australian government and its capital, the city of Adelaide, have declined to apply for the .ADELAIDE top level domain citing they cannot justify the costs involved, saying they are too high.South Australian Information Economy Minister Tom Kenyon says the figures don’t stack up. “The benefits promoted by ARI do not amount to a compelling business case,” he told Adelaide’s Advertiser newspaper.”It’s difficult to justify the additional cost of the TLD registration and the required ongoing management when there does not appear to be a problem in locating information.”A spokesperson for the Adelaide City Council, meanwhile, said that in addition to the application fee to ICANN, a further $50,000 to $100,000 has to be paid out for consulting fees, the Advertiser also reported.And on top of that figure, the spokesperson says, there are annual operating costs of around $125,000-to-$175,000 to be taken into consideration.”The process is very expensive and does not provide council with significant value for money,” she added.”Council currently owns a number of regular domain names which align with businesses as well as specific marketing of council strategies, initiatives and programs.”Offering a different point of view though was Ben Murray, the director of branding consultancy BMD Brands, who told The Advertiser that destination domains are a branding “dream come true” and thinks local governments are being short-sighted.”For South Australia or Adelaide to be able to attach itself to the businesses and activities that people come to our state for, is an outstanding branding opportunity,” he says.”The State Government needs to remove its tinfoil hat, show confidence in our state and make this small investment – ‘.ADELAIDE’ or ‘.SOUTHAUSTRALIA’ would assist our businesses in competing nationally and internationally.”ARI Registry Services CEO Adrian Kinderis also spoke to The Advertiser and said his organisation has been trying to convince the State Government and the council of the benefits of TLDs since 2009.”It’s disappointing – especially for a city like Adelaide, which puts great effort into putting itself on the global map through its various branding exercises,” chief executive Adrian Kinderis told The Advertiser.”It could be three years before this opportunity is offered again and what Adelaide risks is that there could be another Adelaide somewhere in the globe that could take that name.”Mr Kinderis also said that owning a domain allows governments to create an official one-stop shop to promote their cities, link local businesses and boost their online identity.And while it is costing interstate governments $US185,000 to apply for each new suffix, Mr Kinderis believes the operating costs would be recouped by NSW and Victorian businesses wishing to align their own websites with the official government domains.

Sedari Signs On For .AFRICA And .MOSCOW gTLDs

A couple of weeks after signing on to assist the applicants for the .MOSCOW generic Top Level Domain, the Foundation for Assistance for Internet Technologies and Infrastructure Development (FAITID), Sedari has now announced it is cooperating with South Africaâs UniForum SA as the organisation leading a pan-African effort supported by the African Union to apply for the dotAfrica gTLD

âThis is an important step for organisations and individuals interested in acquiring an African online identity, as dotAfrica will give added visibility and identity to operations in the region,â said UniForum SA director, Neil Dundas explaining the rationale behind the gTLD. âWe are pleased to be working with Sedari who is providing professional support for the ICANN application.â

âSedari is delighted to be working on this inspirational domain name,â said Liz Williams, Sedariâs CEO. âThis expansion of names is all about opportunity but also about empowerment: here is an opportunity to engage the continent of Africa and to help empower its people to make the web their own.â

The .MOSCOW agreement was the first city gTLD that Sedari is involved in and is one of a number of Internationalised Domain Name applicants they are advising. The Moscow application is for both .MOSCOW and .MOCKBA (in Cyrillic).

âImplementation of any TLD is a complicated project with many issues to resolveâ says Dmitry Burkov, FAITID Board Member, âThatâs why weâve chosen Sedari as our strategic international partner for .MOSCOW and .ÐÐÐ¡ÐÐÐ. Sedari management has the experience and industry knowledge on ICANN that makes us confident the company is familiar with all the procedures of the corporation, in particular related to new TLDs. Together with Sedari weâll make the project for Moscow top-level domains successful giving Russian users more choice in the domain name space.â

Directi Group launches Radix; appoints ARI Registry Services for new TLD project

[news release] In an announcement set to shake up the domain name industry, ARI Registry Services has announced it has been appointed as the exclusive registry services provider for Radix, a new entity within the Directi Group, that will be focussed on obtaining and running new generic TLDs. The Directi Group runs multiple successful businesses in the web services space including ResellerClub, LogicBoxes, BigRock and WebHosting.info

Under the arrangement, Radix will aim to secure Top-Level Domains, under ICANN’s program to expand the Internet’s addressing system. ARI Registry Services will provide back-end registry and technical consulting services to Radix.

This latest in a string of new TLD appointments for ARI Registry Services will bring two of the domain name industry’s most successful entrepreneurs together.

Adrian Kinderis, CEO of ARI Registry Services, welcomed the appointment.

“This is one of the largest and most enterprising new Top-Level Domain initiatives ever announced,” Mr Kinderis said. “ARI Registry Services shares the entrepreneurial spirit shown by Radix and this latest appointment shows we are uniquely placed to support entrepreneurs seeking to tap into the multi-billion dollar domain name industry.”

“Radix needed a registry solution that is capable of handling high volumes and millions of domain names. They also required an operator with expertise, security, reliability and entrepreneurial grit. That’s why ARI Registry Services was selected as the successful candidate.”

“Directi runs some of the largest and most successful domain name registrars and web hosting companies in the world and I’m proud they have selected ARI Registry Services to support their ambitious new Top-Level Domain plans. This latest client win not only positions us as a leader in the registry services space, but reinforces the fact that you don’t have to be an existing gTLD registry in order to be successful in this program. The game is certainly changing.”

Bhavin Turakhia, Founder of Radix, said ARI Registry Services was clearly the candidate for the project following an extensive evaluation process.

“Directi is well known for breeding and nurturing highly successful business models and our plans for the new Top-Level Domain program are no different,” Bhavin said. “We have set ambitious goals as part of this new Top-Level Domain project and as such we went to the market seeking a provider with the flexibility to handle our demanding business requirements and the technical capability to guarantee streamlined operation. We found many registry providers were not capable of adjusting their offerings to suit our unique project. This is why we selected ARI Registry Services for this project because their approach to business mirrors ours.”

The exact TLD strings Radix will apply for with ARI Registry Services support will remain confidential until the May 1st public unveil.

This ARI Registry Services news release was sourced from:
www.ariservices.com/news-directi_group_launches_radix.php

ICANN Public Comment: Proposal to Protect International Red Cross and International Olympic Committee Names at the Top Level in New gTLDs

ICANN logo Purpose (Brief): Public comment is being sought by the IOC/RC Drafting Team established by the GNSO Council on an expedited basis as a matter of urgency on a proposal developed in collaboration with the GAC and the IOC/RC Drafting Team to implement certain protections for Red Cross/Red Crescent and International Olympic Committee names at the top level commencing with the first round of New GTD applications

It is recognized that that the time frame is exceptionally short because of the time constraints imposed by the closing of the new gTLD application window on April 12, 2012, and the new working relationship between the GNSO community and the GAC. It should also be noted that these recommendations may be the subject of possible action by the GNSO Council on 14 March 2012 at the ICANN Meeting in Costa Rica.

Public Comment Box Link: www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment/ioc-rcrc-proposal-02mar12-en.htm

ICANN Call for Videos: New gTLD Applicant Stories and Learnings Sought

ICANN logo As the steward of the global expansion of new generic top-level domains, ICANN maintains strict confidentiality about applicants and their applications. However, we know from interacting with our community that many applicants have fascinating stories â along with key learnings that could help other applicants

Therefore, ICANN is calling for videos by any applicants who want to share about their journey. (This invitation also extends to those who represent applicants, and have permission to speak publicly about the applicant’s story.) If you’re willing to recount what you’ve experienced in applying for a new gTLD, we encourage you to post a video to YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, your own site, or anywhere the public can reach it. Then send an email to communications@icann.org and let us know where your video is. We’ll review it, and if it meets our guidelines, we’ll highlight it through our Twitter feeds and Facebook page so that others may learn from your experiences.

Guidelines

Your video can be as simple or elaborate as you wish, and does not have to be produced in English. What we’re looking for should emphasize the human aspect of your process: your personal experiences applying for a new gTLD, and what you’ve learned so far. If you’re stuck for an idea, examples of what you might talk about include:

What motivated you to select the string you’re applying for?
Inside your organization, what was the process like that resulted in deciding to apply?
What question in your application have you found most difficult to answer?
As you’ve gathered support for your TLD, how have outsiders responded?
What has been the hardest aspect of applying? What has been the most exciting?

Our goal is to collaborate with applicants in educating, sharing learnings, and raising world-wide awareness about new generic top-level domains.

The Fine Print

Our mentioning your video through ICANN social media tools has no bearing on whether the independent evaluators will approve your application. ICANN may refer to applicant videos without implying any endorsement of the organizations contributing the videos or the strings they are applying for. ICANN reserves the right to mention or not mention any particular video, and we will not highlight pure advertisements or videos we think are not in the educational spirit of sharing an applicant story. In selecting videos to mention, ICANN weighs on educational merits and does not validate an organization’s claim to have applied for a new gTLD. Videos we choose to highlight must conform to ICANN‘s Expected Standards of Behavior [PDF, 106 KB], the community guidelines and Terms of Service of whatever site each video is posted on, and all applicable trademark and copyright laws. Applicants should consider carefully what details they choose to disclose publicly. ICANN claims no rights of copyright or ownership to any of the videos submitted, offering solely a community service to help interested parties find such videos and to learn more about new gTLDs.

In Conclusion

If you’d like to share your own applicant story with the ICANN community, this is your opportunity. Our social media initiative aimed at highlighting applicant stories will continue during calendar 2012. “First movers” typically get more attention, so we encourage you to post your video soon â then notify us via email to communications@icann.org. To those who choose to share their experience: thanks, in advance.

We’ve posted a video of our own inviting you to post your videos. It’s on the New gTLDs microsite.

This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-02mar12-en.htm

Domain .КАЗ delegated to Kazakhstan

[news release] ICANN announced that domain .ÐºÐ°Ð· had been approved and delegated to the Kazakhstan Association of IT companies. According to ICANN, the new internationalized top-level domain name is of some interest to the global Internet community. The Kazakhstan Association of IT companies has not yet announced terms and conditions of domain names registration in the new domain

Like the domains of the Russian Federation (.ÑÑ) and of Serbia (.ÑÑÐ±), the new Kazakh domain uses the Cyrillic script; however, the domain name .ÐºÐ°Ð· uses the Kazakh variant of the latter. About 10,000,000 people in the world speak the Kazakh language, while the number of online users in the Republic of Kazakhstan comes to 4,300,000-plus, or 41% of the population.

âThe Cyrillic script is one of the most popular alphabets on the Internet and the debut of yet another domain that uses the Cyrillic script is crucial for the development of the Web as a whole, – said Andey Kolesnikov, the CCâs CEO. â Hopefully, the positive record of the registry for domain .ÑÑ will help the Kazakhstan Association of IT companies launch their Cyrillic domainâ.

Presently there are slightly less than 30 countries in the world which have been delegated internationalized top-level domains. The Arabic, Cyrillic, Chinese and Tamil scripts are the most popular script variants in the existing IDNs. It should be noted that strings by applicant nations submitted for the ICANNâs approval do not always successfully pass the test. For example, domains . ÎµÎ» (Greece) and .Ð±Ð³ (Bulgaria) were rejected because the ICANN commission considered these variants similar to already existing or reserved domain names.

This Coordination Center for TLD RU news release was sourced from:
cctld.ru/en/news/news_detail.php?ID=3456

Successful Tenderer For .SYDNEY, .MELBOURNE Bids Expected Soon

An announcement is expected within the next week of the successful tenderer to assist with the application and run the registry for the .SYDNEY and .MELBOURNE gTLDs, The Australian newspaper reported today.The tender document, which was published in October 2011, said the Australian state governments of Victoria and New South Wales were seeking assistance in applying for the .SYDNEY, .MELBOURNE and possibly the .VICTORIA .NSW generic Top Level Domains.The application would see the cities, and potentially states, joining cities and regions around the world including Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, Bavaria, Paris and London in applying for their own gTLDs.Tenders closed on 15 November and an announcement had been expected to be announced in late 2011. However time is of the essence with the three month application window closing on 12 April, while the deadline for applicants to register in the TLD Application System is 29 March.A spokesman for the NSW finance department told The Australian that the successful contractor would be announced within a week.The newspaper understands that the successful bidder has been chosen but NSW and Victoria were still finalising their requirements, but one of the requirements in the tender noted in The Australian was that the successful operator would also be required to pay state governments a flat fee of 20 per cent of any revenue it generates from the domains over $500,001.