New gTLD Application For .APP Is Withdrawn - The 32nd new gTLD application has been withdrawn with ICANN, and today its not for a brand Application but for the most applied for new gTLD, .App. .App you my recall had the most applications submitted to ICANN during the new gTLD program with 13 applications, including one’s submitted by Google, Amazon, Donuts, Top Level Domain Holdings and Famous Four and Afilias to name a few. The company withdrawing their application to operate the Top Level Domain for .App is Dot App LLC, of Utah which had ... read more ...

Another New gTLD Withdraw From ICANN; This Time Its An IDN - Another new gTLD application has been withdrawn and now reflected on ICANN’s site,  this one is the first IDN application to be withdrawn The application for 盛貿飯店 (“tradershotels” in traditional Chinese) filed by Shangri‐La International Hotel Management Limited has been withdrawn just as the first initial evaluations for the new gTLD’s were issued by ICANN today,  starting with IDN’s. This application which had a priority number of 73 becomes the 31st new gTLD application to ... read more ...

4 More New gTLD Applications Withdraw Making It An Even 30 - Four more new gTLD application have been withdrawn, reflected on ICANN’s website bringing the number of withdrawn applications to an even 30. The newly withdrawn applications are for .GDN; .OVERHEIDNL; .GUARDIANMEDIA and .SVR All but .Overheidnl seem to be Brand applications. As initial evaluations (IE) from ICANN are due out any day, we many see a rush of withdrawals as applicants at this point get 70% of their application fee refunded, IE’s are issued the refund drops to 35%. Here are the applicants ... read more ...

ICANN: Objections To New gTLD’s Will Not Be Fully Posted Until Mid-April - Although the objection period for the new gTLD’s closed on March 13th, tonight ICANN stated that it will not post all objections across all Dispute Resolution Service Providers until mid-April “”The period for filing formal objections to new generic Top-Level Domains began on 13 June 2012 and closed on 13 March 2013 at 23:59 UTC.”” “ICANN will post a list of all Objections filed across all the Dispute Resolution Service Providers by mid-April.” Just today WIPO posted 10 new gTLD objections. Other ... read more ...

10 New Objections Filed: Google & Donuts Get Hit On Goo: .Coach - 10 new Legal Rights Objections to gTLD applications have been filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO),  hitting Google and Donuts among others. Google was hit with an objection for the new gTLD .Goo by NTT Resonant Inc which operates a internet search engine and web portal based in Japan, which crawls and indexes primarily Japanese language websites known as Goo. Donuts was hit with an objection by Coach, Inc., the fashion company, which has its own new gTLD application submitted ... read more ...

FairSearch.Org Files Objections To Google’s New gTLD Apps For .Search .Fly & .Map - FairSeach.Org, which has support from Microsoft Corp. Oracle Corp and Nokia has filed objections to Google’s request to control new top-level domains “.search,” “.fly” and “.map” ICANN accepting Google’s application will enable the dominant search provider to “gain an unfair competitive advantage against other members of this community through the improper grant of a perpetual monopoly of generic industry terms to a single company.” “Google has already established a dominant ... read more ...

One of The Applicant For .Med Withdraws Its New gTLD Application - One of the applicants for .Med has withdrawn their new gTLD application with ICANN DocCheck AG withdrew its application just a couple of days after the ICANN Independent Objector, posted it objection to the application. There are still more .Med applications including one filed by Google. DocCheck Ag is from Germany and the contact on the application is Mr. Philip Stadtmann, who only appears of this one application for .Med. .Med becomes the 25th new gTLD application to be withdrawn. ICANN also failed ... read more ...

ICANN’s Independent Objector Files Objections To 24 New gTLD Applications - On 12 March 2013, the Independent Objector (IO) lodged 24 objections against new applied-for gTLDs before the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). The 24 objections were on 13 separate strings, three for .Amazon including 2 IDN’s; .Charity; .Med; .Health,; .Healthcare; .Hospital; .Indians; .Patagonia; .Medical. The IO is limited to filing objections on the grounds of Limited Public Interest and Community. “Following his exchanges with some applicants for new gTLDs, as part of the Initial ... read more ...

ICANN Denies Financial Assistance For 2 New gTLD’s & Their Applications Fail - Two new gTLD applications have been rejected by ICANN that were submitted under the SARP financial Assistance program after ICANN decided that they did not meet the criteria for financial assistance. The new gTLD applications were for;  .IDN submitted by NameShop and .UMMAH which was applied for by Ummah Digital. In all three new gTLD financial assistance requests were submitted to ICANN by applicants to the New gTLD Program. “Each of these requests were carefully considered and extensively reviewed ... read more ...

Another Brand New gTLD Drops Out as .Olympus Withdraws it’s Application - Olympus Corporation has become the latest company to withdraw it new gTLD application for its .brand application .Olympus which had a Prioritization number of  1,861. .Olympus becomes the 22nd new gTLD application to be withdrawn not including the withdrawal of .home and .casa which it announced this week by Godaddy.com, which is not yet reflected on ICANN’s site. According to the application the new gTLD .Olympus would have: “Enabled the Olympus Corporation  to communicate more easily and ... read more ...

ICANN’s “Geographic Names Panel” Says .Vegas Is Not A Geo - .Vegas apparently is not a Geo, so  says the ICANN Geographic Names Panel. The panel “has determined that the string .Vegas does not fall within the criteria for a geographic name contained in the Applicant Guidebook Section 2.2.1.4.” The .Vegas application says: “Dot Vegas, Inc. (herein referred to as “Dot Vegas”, “Dot Vegas, Inc.ʺ, the ʺCompanyʺ or “Applicantʺ), in cooperation with and under the express endorsement and direction of the City of Las Vegas, Nevada (as described ... read more ...

Two More New gTLD Applications Withdrawn: .HEINZ & .KETCHUP - ICANN just posted on its site the withdrawal of two more new gTLD applications bring the total of withdrawn applications to 21. ProMark Brands Inc. withdrew the only two new gTLD applications it had for .HEINZ .KETCHUP. .KETCHUP had a Prioritization number of 737, and HEINZ had a Prioritization of 1345. It should be noted at this point, applicants still get 70% of their application back and that percentage drops to 35% after Initial Evaluations are released, which ICANN has promised to start releasing ... read more ...

The Independent Objector For ICANN’s New gTLD Program Decides Not To Object To Anything - As part of the new gTLD program ICANN provided it would establish an Independent Objector who could file an objection to new gTLD strings or applicants and May 14th 2012  on named Professor Alain Pellet as the  Independent Objector (IO). “Acting solely in the best interests of global Internet users, the Independent Objector may lodge Limited Public Interest and Community objections in cases where no other objection is made to an application that the Independent Objector deems to be objectionable. “More ... read more ...

Fallout From Contention Sets: .Law/.Lawyer; .Hotel/.Hotels; .Car/.Cars & Many More - Now that ICANN has stuck to its guns and only placed 4 new gTLD’s strings that look confusingly similar into contention sets, rather than those that sound identical, such as .inc and .ink or those that have the same meaning like .Law and .Lawyer or those that are singular and plurals of the same word, we now know what we will get when the new gTLD’s roll out and in part its going to be a very a tough marketing road for some of the strings. Not only will the new gTLD strings have to sell themselves ... read more ...

Breaking: ICANN Publishes Contention Sets & Only Puts Four Non-Match gTLD’s Strings Together - ICANN just published it long awaited New gTLD String Similarity Contention Sets fand quite surprisingly just put four non-matching applications into two contention sets. ICANN placed the new gTLD application for: .Hoteis by  Despegar Online SRL into the same contention set as  the application by Booking.com for .Hotels ICANN however, did not include the 7 applications for .Hotel into the contention set for .Hotels. It should also be noted that the applicant for .Hoteis also has an application for ... read more ...

Another Brand New gTLD Applicant Drops Out This Time AIG on .CHARTIS - Another .Brand new gTLD application has been withdrawn.  American International Group, Inc. (AIG) has withdrawn its application for .Chartis with ICANN. .Chartis was proposed to be used as a closed registry and becomes the 19th withdrawn new gTLD application posted on ICANN’s website. American International Group, Inc. still has a new gTLD application in for .AIG which has a priority number of 174 while .Chartis has a propriety number of 1782. Here is how AIG described its application for .Chartis “AIG ... read more ...

ICANN: Over 22% Of Changes Requests From New gTLD Applicants Not Approved Or Posted Yet - According to ICANN’s site, 143 new gTLD application which changes were requested by the evaluators still have either not been update or the changes have not been accepted by ICANN As of February 19, 2013 there were a total of 631 change requests submitted to applicants and only 488 of the change requests have been approved posted. Percentage wise that means that of all the  change requests submitted to applicants over 22% have still not been either submitted back to ICANN and/or not approved ... read more ...