ICANN's public auction for the registry rights to the .web generic top-level domain concluded with a winning final bid, but the final results aren't confirmed, two domain names industry executives told us Thursday. ICANN and the industry executives separately told us they weren't able to confirm reports the winning bid for .web was $135 million. If true the result would be far higher than the previous highest price paid for a gTLD in a public auction -- GMO Registry's January purchase of the .shop TLD for $41.5 million -- one industry executive said. The identity of the winning bidder for .web wasn't revealed, but the seven parties bidding included Google and domain registry Donuts. ICANN was able to proceed Wednesday with the .web auction after the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles rejected a bid by Donuts to delay the sale amid its lawsuit claiming ICANN was negligent and in breach of contract for not more thoroughly investigating the ownership of rival .web bidder Nu Dot Co (see 1607270027 and 1607250051). ICANN said it would publish the results of the .web auction within seven days of its conclusion.
ICANN proceeded with the start of its public auction of the .web generic top-level domain (gTLD) Wednesday, after the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles ruled Tuesday against granting domain registry Donuts' application for a temporary restraining order. Donuts had sought the temporary restraining order Friday in connection with its lawsuit against ICANN, in which the registry is claiming ICANN was negligent for not exercising due diligence in investigating what Donuts believes are discrepancies in rival .web applicant Nu Dot Co's disclosures about its ownership. Donuts also claimed ICANN's failure to investigate the claims is a breach of contract and an instance of allowing unfair competition (see 1607250051). District Judge Percy Anderson faulted Donuts in his ruling (in Pacer) against the restraining order, saying he would have denied the request even if ICANN hadn't voiced its opposition (see 1607260057). Donuts failed to follow correct procedure by not contacting ICANN counsel about its restraining order request in advance of filing the lawsuit or correctly serving ICANN with the lawsuit, Anderson said. The restraining order request is also incorrect on the merits, since the evidence in ICANN's opposition filing “and the weakness of [Donuts'] efforts to enforce vague terms” in the ICANN bylaws and the gTLD application guidebook show Donuts “has failed to establish that it is likely to succeed on the merits” in the lawsuit, “raise serious issues, or show that the balance of hardships tips sharply in its favor,” Anderson said. “Moreover, because the results of the auction could be unwound, [Donuts] has not met its burden to establish that it will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of the preliminary injunctive relief it seeks.” Anderson also said Donuts didn't sufficiently prove jurisdiction in its lawsuit, but gave the registry until Aug. 8 to file an amended complaint to address the jurisdiction issue. "While we’re disappointed in the court’s decision, we recognize that the standards for granting a temporary restraining order are heightened and not necessarily indicative of the merits of the underlying case," a Donuts spokesman said. "We are now participating in" the .web auction and will continue "to reserve all available rights regarding this matter."
An independent review of ICANN's Trademark Clearinghouse's (TMCH) services found that few trademark owners are using TMCH's services to register for generic top-level domains (gTLD) during a “sunrise period” before the domains go on general sale or are using the clearinghouse to dispute domain name registrations that include slight variations on their trademarks, ICANN said in a draft report. The Analysis Group independent review was meant to evaluate the efficacy of TMCH's services rather than to make policy recommendations, ICANN said. The independent review found that just under 20 percent of eligible trademark owners have ever used sunrise periods. “Although trademark owners expressed valuing the sunrise period through questionnaire feedback and many apply for sunrise eligibility by submitting proof of use when recording their marks in the TMCH, many trademark owners do not utilize the period,” ICANN said. “This indicates that trademark owners most frequently wait until the general availability period of new gTLDs to register domains of their trademark strings.” Since trademark owners “infrequently dispute resolutions,” an extension of the existing claims service period for disputing domains that match a registered trademark has the potential to be more harmful to non-trademark owner domain registrants than it is to be beneficial to the trademark owners, ICANN said. Public comments on the draft report are due Sept. 3.
ICANN formally opposed domain registry Donuts’ application to the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles for a temporary restraining order to delay the planned Wednesday public auction of the .web generic top-level domain (gTLD) amid Donuts’ lawsuit against ICANN. The .web auction is to begin at 6 a.m. Pacific. Donuts filed the lawsuit Friday, claiming ICANN was negligent for not exercising due diligence in investigating what Donuts claims are discrepancies in rival .web applicant Nu Dot Co’s disclosures about its ownership. Donuts claimed ICANN’s failure to investigate is also a breach of contract and an instance of allowing unfair competition (see 1607250051). ICANN said in a filing (in Pacer) Monday the district court shouldn’t grant the restraining order because the need for emergency relief is of Donuts’ “own making.” Donuts admitted that it was aware June 7 about the statements made by Jose Ignacio Rasco, managing director of Nu Dot Co parent company Straat Investments that appeared to show that Nu Dot Co’s board included several new unidentified directors beyond those listed in Nu Dot Co’s 2012 application for .web, ICANN said. Donuts’ claims the temporary restraining order is needed because of the imminent .web auction “was caused by its own delay” in taking the issue to court. ICANN officials met with Donuts Executive Vice President Jon Nevett June 29 regarding the registry’s concerns about Nu Dot Co’s ownership information and indicated their investigation of the issue found “no evidence” of a change of ownership or management. Donuts had ample time to bring its concerns to the district court but instead “waited until July 22 to file this matter, after many facets of the Auction process had already begun,” ICANN said. Donuts didn’t comment.
About 12 million domain names were added to the internet during Q1, up 3.8 percent from Q4 2015, domain registry Verisign said Tuesday in a report. The additional 12 million domains in Q1 brought the total number of registered domains to 326.4 million, including 126.6 million domains using the .com top-level domain and 15.9 million using .net, Verisign said. The domain registry said it processed 10 million new domain registrations on the .com and .net TLDs in Q1, up from 8.7 million domain registrations during the same period in 2015. Meanwhile, ICANN said in a report Tuesday that domain registrations using generic TLDs grew by 7.3 percent year-over-year between 2014 and 2015.
Domain registry Donuts said it's investing an undisclosed amount in Netki's blockchain-based “wallet names” technology. It said wallet names are user-friendly names for digital currency and other blockchain-based applications that are meant to replace alphanumeric blockchain addresses. The investment is Donuts' second via its Donut Labs initiative. The first was to geofence management firm GeoFrenzy (see 1605030047). Netki's wallet names technology uses domain name system security extension to connect the wallet names to the blockchain addresses, meeting “an unmet market need in the rapidly growing blockchain space,” said Donuts CEO Paul Stahura in a news release.
ICANN CEO Göran Marby assured the Coalition for Online Accountability that his organization is "fully committed" to vigorously enforcing its contracts with domain name registries after the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition, including provisions to protect IP rights and country code top-level domains (ccTLDs). COA, which represents Disney, MPAA and five other top entertainment industry entities, raised concerns last month in letters to Marby and the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees about how ICANN's IANA transition plans would affect the nonprofit's enforcement of contracts (see 1606280062). IP owners will continue to have multiple mechanisms available for enforcing their rights post-transition, including the Public Interest Commitments Dispute Resolution Procedure, Marby said Thursday in a letter. COA's representation to the House and Senate Judiciary leaders of ICANN's process for delegating ccTLDs "misstates NTIA's current role, and reflects a common misunderstanding among various parties in the community," Marby said. "NTIA's role is largely clerical, and does not conduct a substantive review to approve redelegations." The agency "has always concluded that ICANN followed its verification/processing procedures appropriately, and NTIA has never failed to authorize a redelegation request (or other change request for that matter)," he said.
ICANN sought comment Thursday on the proposed extension of its .com registry agreement with Verisign through 2024. ICANN separately signed its service level agreement Wednesday with the Regional Internet Registries for the IANA numbering services, which will take effect when the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition takes effect. ICANN also finalized its memorandum of understanding supplemental agreement Wednesday with the Internet Engineering Task Force for performing protocol parameters functions. Enactment of the IETF supplemental agreement was a Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability recommendation on ICANN accountability mechanisms. The existing Verisign registry agreement won't expire until 2018 but ICANN’s Global Domains Division is proposing an extension of the agreement to align it with the term of its new root zone maintainer services agreement (RZMA) with Verisign. ICANN announced the new RZMA deal last week as part of the work to transition NTIA’s oversight of the root zone management system to ICANN in parallel with the IANA transition (see 1606280062). The .com registry agreement extension doesn’t affect Verisign’s presumptive right of renewal of the contract, ICANN said. Comments on the proposed extension are due Aug. 12.
ICANN's New Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Subsequent Procedures Policy Development Process (PDP) Working Group is “really just starting to get into the meat of our work,” said working group co-Chairman Jeff Neuman during a session Tuesday at ICANN's Helsinki meeting. ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organization Council initiated the PDP after the nonprofit released a report in December urging additional policy development on the gTLD program before any future rounds of new gTLD rollouts (see 1606240055). The working group is deciding what changes could be made to the gTLD rollout process “to clarify what happened” during the original rollout period, Neuman said Tuesday. “We can amend that process, we can override that process, we can develop new policy recommendations or we can supplement and develop new policy guidance.” The working group is exploring whether the new GTLD applicant guidebook used in the initial rollout “is the appropriate approach” for future rollout rounds, Neuman said. The group will decide whether the guidelines should be revised or if there should be different guidebooks for different types of TLDs, he said. The working group also will monitor legal and regulatory issues for the new gTLD program, including whether changes are needed to the base registry agreement, Neuman said. The group is monitoring work in other working groups that may affect its recommendations, including working groups on the use of country and territory names as TLDs and secondary-level domains, Neuman said.
A Nielsen survey on consumer attitudes toward the domain name system and generic top-level domains (gTLDs) reveals that “overall awareness of generic top-level domains has grown when compared to the baseline study that was conducted last year and continues to grow,” said ICANN Global Domains Division President Akram Atallah Thursday in a news release. Nielsen surveyed more than 5,400 consumers in 24 countries in Asia, Europe, North America and South America, ICANN said. Fifty-two percent of respondents said they were aware of at least one new gTLD, with increased awareness evident in Asia, Europe and North America, ICANN said in a report on the Nielsen survey. Higher numbers of consumers were aware of legacy TLDs, with 95 percent saying they were aware of the .com domain, ICANN said. Eighty-eight percent of respondents said they were aware of the .net domain, while 83 percent were area of .org. Ninety-five percent of respondents said they trusted country-code TLDs, while 91 percent said they considered legacy TLDs trustworthy, ICANN said.