New gTLD applicants face Californian lottery
New generic top-level domain (gTLD) applicants will buy a form of raffle ticket to determine how fast their applications are processed, according to draft plans published in October
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) can delegate only 1,000 gTLDs onto the Internet each year but received almost 2,000 applications in June, meaning that there must be a system for putting applications in order in a fair manner.
ICANN wants applicants to play a lottery that will take place between December 4 and 15 in Los Angeles. They must buy paper tickets—$100 per application—in person or through an “in-person representative”. This proxy can represent multiple applications for a single applicant or multiple applicants, and will not cost applicants extra money.
These proposals, open for public comment until November 9, represent a U-turn by ICANN. It ruled out using a lottery for creating batches of applications, saying such a system breached Californian gambling laws. But the organisation has applied for a ‘fundraising drawings’ licence, which it expected to receive no later than November this year. The draw would be exempt from the state’s laws.
ICANN said applicants can opt out of the lottery, which will be overseen by an independent consulting firm or third party. Applications for internationalised domain names (IDNs), which are those in non-Latin alphabets, will be given priority; there are 116 IDNs.
Once the IDNs have been picked, the draw numbers will trigger the release of evaluation results, which ICANN will publish weekly between March and June 2013. If the applications pass evaluation, the same draw numbers will determine how quickly gTLDs pass through pre-delegation testing and contract discussions.
ICANN plans to conduct 20 pre-delegation tests and sign 20 contracts per week, keeping in mind its 1,000-per-year target. Although some of the first applications—if they pass evaluation, receive no objections and are not contested—will be ready in March, ICANN will not sign any contracts or delegate any gTLDs until after its public meeting in Beijing, from April 7 to 11, 2013. But it said it will begin delegating the first domains in the second quarter of 2013, presumably aft er the meeting has finished.
In a blog post, gTLD consultant Fairwinds said a manual draw “removes much of the margin for error that was present in the ‘digital archery’ process”—this was another proposed system for batching that ICANN scrapped this year following technical problems. ICANN has said applicants cannot swap their draw numbers in the lottery. This means that applicants with multiple domains will not be able to pick which ones ICANN delegates first.
