Recently-delegated TLDs: July 2016

This month, the new generic TLDs delegated to the root zone seemed to have been TLDs that weathered a bit more contention than in a typical month. Objections were filed for applications for TLDs delegated in June for string confusion, when a TLD is supposedly so close to another that the two could be easily confused, and for legal rights. One applicant for .art even attempted to game the system to favor their application.

.now, .deal, .save — June 7

July 12 was Amazon Prime Day and only just on June 7, .prime was delegated by ICANN as a Brand TLD but on the same day, Amazon also had some success with generic TLDs with .now, .deal and .save all being delegated on that day.

These were not all totally without controversy, however.

The application for .now was objected to by Starbucks (HK) Limited. This isn’t the coffee company, but the owners of now TV, a pay TV service launched in Hong Kong in 2003. The objection was filed as a Legal Rights Objection. Starbucks claimed that their ownership of the “now” trademark meant that other applicants would be infringing. The same company succeeded in its application for .nowtv, which they have yet to assign a regsitry to, so it seems that they are very concerned about protecting their brand. Perhaps this was an earnest case of trademark protection or perhaps it was an attempt to use the objection process to favor their own bid.

.cam — June 16

Verisign filed separate String Confusion objections for each of the three .cam applications submitted, claiming that its proximity to .com would cause confusion. Oddly, the objection to Demand Media’s application prevailed even though the objections to AC Webconnecting Holding B.V.’s application and to Famous Four Media’s application were dismissed.

After appealing the decision, though, Demand Media was able to win against the objection and AC Webconnecting Holding B.V. won .cam in an auction.

.shopping — June 21

Last month, .shop was delegated to GMO, who wanted it so much they applied for it twice. GMO ultimately prevailed, but another applicant for the .shop TLD, Commercial Connect, tried to protect their application by filing an objection to Donut’s .shopping application.

Interestingly, no objection was filed to Uniregistry’s application and as the only remaining applicant, Uniregistry’s application won.

.art — June 23

The .art TLD was one of the most applied-for new gTLDs in the entire program, with ten initial applications, including two community applications. One of those was from dadotart inc., a subsidiary of DeviantArt evidently created to serve as the registry of .art domains.

DeviantArt’s counsel commented on another application from an applicant who took an unorthodox approach. Aremi Group registered trademarks for .art and dotart in the EU, a way in which certain players have tried to game the TLD release process.

Neither Aremi Group’s or DeviantArt’s application for .art prevailed, though, and after half the registrants withdrew their applications, including Aremi Group, UK Creative Ideas Limited won .art in a private auction.

.politie — June 23

Similar to a Brand TLD, the Dutch national police had their applied-for TLD, .politie, added to the root zone this month as well. The word “politie” is Dutch for “police,” and the Dutch police intend to use it to fight phishing attempts using the name of the Dutch police. Citizens can know, instead, that any communications or information coming from a .politie domain is actually from the police and not someone else. It’s certainly interesting to see a public institution tech-savvy enough to take advantage of the new gTLD program to improve their services to the public they serve.

As always: these are new TLDs on the cutting edge of having been added by ICANN. As such, any discussion of one of these TLDs should not be interpreted as meaning any of these extensions will be imminently available on Gandi (though we, of course, try to offer all the extensions we possibly can).