Blog: Antony Van Couvering

I’m very pleased to report that Minds + Machines’ parent company, Top Level Domain Holdings, Ltd., today appointed Peter Dengate Thrush, former Chairman of ICANN, as its Executive Chairman.

Here’s the TLDH press release in full:

Peter Dengate Thrush appointed as Executive Chairman of TLDH

The Directors of Top Level Domain Holdings Limited (AIM: TLDH.L), the only publicly traded company focused exclusively on acquiring and operating new generic top-level domains (“gTLD”), are delighted to announce that Mr Peter Dengate Thrush has been appointed Executive Chairman of the Company with immediate effect. Mr Dengate Thrush was until recently the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (“ICANN”), where in June 2011 he led the ICANN Board to approve the programme to create new gTLDs. (more…)

Some TLD applicants have been saying that they’re “community” applications, which means that would avoid an auction and prevail over even deep-pocketed competitors. But according to ICANN’s Applicant Guidebook, very few if any applications will qualify as a community. If you’re an applicant who’s been telling your supporters or investors that you’re going to win because you’re a community, you might want to take a step back.

This post will look at the reality of who will gain community status under ICANN rules. A few already-announced TLD applications that are commonly thought to be communities — but none of them are even close to qualifying.

One announced applicant for .ECO keeps putting out notices about the “.ECO community.” A .GAY applicant makes lots of references to the gay community. And a well known .MUSIC applicant wrote a blog post just a few months ago that he would file a community application. (Note: Minds + Machines has announced support for bids for .ECO and .GAY — so we’ve looked at this question closely.)

Most people would say there is such a thing as the gay community, maybe music and eco communities not so much. But it doesn’t matter: from the ICANN point of view none of them will qualify for “community status” in their gTLD application. Under ICANN rules, even the “ICANN community” wouldn’t qualify as a community.

Scoring the Apps

Let’s score .ECO, .GAY, and .MUSIC. Turn to section 4.2.3 of the Guidebook, called “Community Priority Evaluation Criteria” and read through how they will score each criterion. Remember, you have to get 14 out of 16 points to beat out your non-community competitor. If you don’t get 14 points, you can still proceed to an auction, but you’re stuck with all the rules you put in place to try to qualify as a community.

Here is a table showing how I would score each of these TLDs would score in a “community priority evaluation.” If you go through the guidebook and score them yourself, you might disagree by a point or maybe two, but if you did, they would get a lower score. The scoring I used is very generous. Explanations follow the table:

Let’s go through it. There are four criteria groupings, and subparts below each one.

Criterion 1: Community Establishment

Part A is “delineation,” which means a “clear and straightforward membership definition.” Members of .ECO are…? People who believe in ecological causes? Not terribly clear. Score of 1. .MUSIC? People who like music? Even worse but there is some connection, a charitable score of 1. .GAY? People who say they are gay? Leaving aside how they’re going to check (that comes later), it’s not super clear, especially as the gay community itself typically embraces bisexual and transgendered people. Generously, we will give .ECO 1, .GAY 1, .MUSIC 0.

Part B is “extension,” which means a community of “considerable size and longevity.” If you accept that these are communities, everyone here scores 2 out of 2.

Criterion 2: Nexus of the Proposed String and Community

Part A is “Nexus,” which looks at how closely the TLD name describes the supposed community. ECO doesn’t really match the name of the movement (it is also called the green movement, or the conservation movement), MUSIC isn’t really about people, but OK, and GAY pretty much means gay people. Out of a possible 3, I score .ECO 1, .GAY 3, .MUSIC 2.

Part B is “Uniqueness,” which asks if there is any other meaning of the word. ECO could easily mean “economics,” GAY doesn’t really mean anything else these days, and MUSIC means lots of things, as big generic words do. Out of 1, .ECO gets 0, .GAY 1, and .MUSIC 0.

Criterion 3: Registration Policies.

The stricter you are, the higher you score. Because you can set your own registration policies, everyone gets the maximum score on this one, though on an application they might not, since super-tight registration rules are suicidal for most TLDs. Also, if you don’t pass the community test, you still have to enforce your registration policies (more on that below). So, as a very generous “gimme”: out of 4 possible points: .ECO 4, .GAY 4, .MUSIC 4.

Criterion 4: Community Endorsement

This is where community applications go to die. If there is any significant objection to your application carrying the banner for the community, you will lose two points, which means that you have to be perfect on every other point — highly unlikely.

Part A is “Support.” If everyone supports you, 2 pts; if you have some support, 1 pt.; no support, a zero. Out of 2 pts., .ECO gets 1, .GAY gets 1, .MUSIC gets 1

Part B is “Opposition,” which can easily come from your competitors. The standard is “relevant opposition from one [or more] group of non-negligible size.” They don’t have to prevail in their opposition for you to lose points — they just have to file. I think all of these applications will have some opposition from more than one quarter. Out of a possible 2 pts., I have .ECO with 0, .GAY 0, .MUSIC 0.

.GAY is clearly the strongest case for community of these three applications, but still falls far short at 12 pts out of 16. .ECO and .MUSIC don’t even come close.

So Who Is a Community?

The only way to make sure you qualify as a community is to *be* the community. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) could get .AARP as a community TLD, because they own the entire name: there is no-one who could object. In this sense a community in the ICANN sense is just like a brand, complete with intellectual property rights, except that it may not have a corporate structure or a profit motive. Otherwise I can see very little difference.

The key factor in the way ICANN has set this up is that although it’s very hard to qualify as a community, it’s very easy to object to one, and that’s where community applications will falter even if they are strong in other areas. Any institution of “non-negligible size” that claims to represent a community (loosely defined) can object to a community (very tightly defined) application. If one such institution objects, you lose a point. If two or more do, you lose two points. (They can object even if you’re not a community, but in that case they have to prevail — a community application loses points even if the objection is not upheld.)

Bottom Line: Think Very Hard Before Applying As a Community

If you have a competitor with some support, or if you haven’t made sure that every organization in your community is on board, you are highly unlikely to pass the community priority evaluation. And since that evaluation only happens if you do have a competitor or a community objection, in most cases it makes no sense to apply as a community. If you have credible competition, you almost certainly will not pass the community priority evaluation, and you will be stuck with restrictive policies that will be very hard to change later.

The following is a quantitative analysis of the ICANN public comment for the New gTLD Program – Draft Expressions of Interest/Pre-Registrations Model. The full text of comments can be found on ICANN’s site.

We have also prepared a PDF version of our analysis, which includes a full list of all comments and a brief description of each comment.

I. Overall Findings

The ICANN public comment for the New gTLD Program – Draft Expressions of Interest/Pre-Registrations Model closed on February 7, 2010. A total of 274 separate comments were received (several commenters made multiple comments). 183 comments (67 percent) supported EOIs, and a majority of those favored the Draft Model. 76 comments (28 percent) were opposed to EOIs. 15 comments (5 percent) were neither for nor against the Draft Model.

II. EOI Supporters

EOI supporters break down into two major categories (number of comments in parentheses). A full list of commenters, with a brief description of their comments, can be found in the attached PDF.

• Companies and Groups in Favor of EOIs (86)
• Individuals (97)

Commenters in favor of EOIs can be further divided into the following categories:

1. Prospective Applicants for new gTLDs
2. Individuals connected to prospective applicants
3. The ICANN At-Large Advisory Committee
4. The ICANN ISP Constituency
5. The ICANN GNSO
6. Independent small and medium-sized businesses
7. Independent individuals
8. Independent not-for-profit membership organizations
9. Independent not-for-profit charities
10. Existing gTLD registries
11. Existing ccTLD registries
12. ICANN-accredited gTLD registrars
13. Law firms

III. Arguments Made for EOIs

Comments of the respondents in favor of EOIs were for the most part in full agreement with the staff proposal. Some, however, had additional thoughts or reservations:

• Timetable – the delay in the introduction of gTLDs hurts legitimate applicants who relied on ICANN’s announced timetables.
• Begin the process – The gTLD process needs to get started, EOIs are a welcome first step.
• Predictability – EOIs are welcome because they will help set a predictable timetable for the introduction of new gTLDs.
• Participation – Prospective applicants are an important for making policy for new gTLDs, they have should have some official representation at ICANN.
• Anti-Trademark – trademark interests have been given too much already, should not be allowed to derail the process.
• Anti-Monopoly – vested interests have too much power; ICANN should introduce competition.
• Security – new gTLDs are an opportunity to make the Internet more secure.
• Contention – EOIs will allow contending parties to make arrangements between themselves to prevent auctions.
• “Slot” Trading – ICANN should take care about EOI “slots” becoming a speculative marketplace.
• Mandatory – Several supporters of EOIs believed they should not be mandatory.
• Confidentiality – Several supporters were concerned that too much information was being collected in the EOI; others thought not enough was being asked.
• Price – the proposed filing fee for EOIs was seen by some as appropriately high, others as too expensive.

IV. Minds + Machines Comment Form

Minds + Machines put together an online form that outlined the rather complicated arguments for and against EOIs as a way to encourage comments from those for whom the prospect of writing out an extended argument might be daunting. We further encouraged commenters both for and against EOIs to use the comment form. Most commenters using this form, but by no means all, sent in comments favorable to EOIs.

V. EOI Opponents

The large majority of commenters opposing the Draft Model represented the concerns of trademark holders: trademark associations or groups (23); trademark attorneys (21); or the legal departments of companies (15) account for more than 80 percent of those in opposition of the Draft Model. A full list of the comments, along with a brief description of each, can be found in the attached PDF.

• Trademark Groups Opposed to EOIs (23)
• Individual Companies Opposed to EOIs (15)
• Individuals Opposed to EOIs (17)
• INTA members (21)

The commenters against EOIs can be further divided into the following categories:

1. Large brand owners
2. Registrars providing domain name services to brand owners
3. Trademark and intellectual property associations
4. ICANN’s Intellectual Property Constituency
5. Large charitable not-for-profits
6. Members of the International Trademark Association (see Section VI below for further explanation).
7. Sports organizations
8. Independent individuals
9. Eric Brunner-Williams

VI. Arguments made against EOIs

The following are the primary concerns found in the comments opposed to EOIs:

• Resolution of overarching issues – The “overarching issues” need to be resolved before any EOIs.
• DAG – The Final DAG needs to be published before an EOI.
• Speculation – EOIs will promote speculative behavior including “slot” trading.
• Time – The process is moving too quickly for proper response and consideration.
• Price – $55,000 is too much for nonprofits, developing countries and for others who cannot afford it.
• No gTLDs – Any new gTLDs are a bad idea.

VII. INTA Submissions

On January 12, INTA, the International Trademark Association (INTA) sent out an anti-EOI message to its membership (full text below), exhorting them to comment, suggesting that merely registering their opinion would be sufficient as a comment. Therefore we have included them as a separate category.

Dear INTA Members,

The following notice is to bring to your attention two Internet domain name
system developments that warrant your consideration and potential action.

1. ICANN is Soliciting Input: Should it Proceed with Pre-Registrations for
New gTLDs?

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is seeking
community views, including input from trademark owners and their
representatives, on whether it should begin accepting “pre-registrations” for
new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs). Please click here for the ICANN
announcement.

INTA’s Internet Committee will submit comments opposing pre-registration, but
it is important that ICANN also hear from trademark owners directly.

This letter was followed by comments from INTA members that were brief and did not include a reason for opposing EOIs. A typical example follows:

To: draft-eoi-model@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: Pre-registrations for new gTLDs
From: “Lisbet Andersen” lan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:48:57 +0100

As an INTA member I have been encouraged to give my opinion on the pre-registration issue. This is to inform you that I do not support ICANN accepting pre-registrations for new gTLDs.

Kind regards
Lisbet Andersen

VIII. Conclusion

The majority of the comments in favor of the Draft Model supported all of the proposed points in the Draft Model, with some concerns about price and whether EOIs should be mandatory. Strongly, they urged ICANN to move forward expeditiously and to provide a clear and predictable timeline.

The comments against the Draft Model were for the most part opposed to EOIs and new gTLDs in general. The comments from the 21 INTA members were very short comments opposing EOIs. Some of the arguments by large brand holders were longer and did not comment on the staff proposal so much as offer their concerns about EOIs and new gTLDs. The primary concern among companies providing an explanation for their opposition was the resolution of the “overarching issues.” Security was the second greatest concern.

Comments or Corrections

We may well have made an inadvertent error in our analysis. Please send corrections or comments by leaving a comment here or by sending an email to minds@mindsandmachines.com.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DOMAIN INDUSTRY LEADERS ANTONY VAN COUVERING, JOTHAN FRAKES AND ELAINE PRUIS LAUNCH “MINDS + MACHINES”—REGISTRY SERVICES COMPANY BASED ON COCCA PLATFORM WILL OFFER INEXPENSIVE, FULL-SERVICE SOLUTION FOR NEW TOP-LEVEL DOMAIN APPLICANTS.

MEXICO CITY (March 1, 2009). Domain name veterans Antony Van Couvering and Jothan Frakes announced today the formation of Minds + Machines, a domain name registry services company for new top-level domains (TLDs). Minds + Machines will offer full-service consulting (Minds) combined with Espresso, a top-tier domain registry software platform (Machines).

The Minds + Machines consulting solution extends from application to operations, and offers a full rebate of consulting fees from eventual registrations. Application preparation services, sales channel establishment, intellectual property protection (Sunrise Period) design, investment assistance, contention and objection resolution, staffing, ICANN liaison and other services will be offered. Minds + Machines has assembled a choice of best-of-breed partners into a complete registry package to make multiple vendors easy to manage. Auction services, DNS resolution, data escrow, trademark verification, design, and marketing partners are available to Minds + Machines clients, often at preferential rates.

Espresso, the Minds + Machines registry solution, is a cousin of CoCCA, the leading open-source solution used by dozens of country-code top-level domains and all the top ICANN registrars. Espresso extends the robust CoCCA platform to make it available to communities, organizations and entrepreneurs seeking to apply for a new top-level domain from ICANN.

“We’re cheaper, quicker, easier, stronger, and complete, as suggested by the Espresso brand,” said Van Couvering, CEO of Minds + Machines. “After looking at all the current registry solutions, we saw a real opportunity to provide a better service. The combination of our consulting model, layered into CoCCA, which is a very inexpensive open-source software with a proven track record, is a key differentiator.”

Espresso is available as a hosted or locally-installed solution, and is customizable to any TLD business model. Espresso features an inexpensive flat “per registration” fee, with no setup fees and no lock-in. For corporations who envision just a few registrations, Minds + Machines offers an inexpensive setup fee and a low flat annual fee.

Minds + Machines has signed an exclusive agreement with CoCCA to provide Espresso to gTLDs, while CoCCA will continue to provide services to country-code TLDs. “We are thrilled that Antony, Jothan and Elaine are extending the CoCCA platform to the gTLD space by introducing Espresso,” said Garth Miller, CEO of CoCCA Tools. “This company launch will provide gTLDs applicants of all types and sizes an inexpensive and reliable alternative to existing legacy registry service operators.”

Espresso is fully compliant with ICANN requirements and has been thoroughly field-tested by over 20 currently-operating TLDs. “The Espresso platform fully supports key Internet standards related to registry operations, such as registration, resolution, and WhoIs, and works with important new standards like DNSSEC, IPv6, and IDN. The code is elegant. It is written in Java, can support any unicode language, is compatible with all major currencies, and can work with any of the anycast DNS providers,” says Jothan Frakes, Minds + Machines COO. “CoCCa, Espresso’s cousin, is in use today by more root-listed TLDs than any other software, and has most of the planet’s registrars already integrated to our EPP API, so new TLDs added to Espresso benefit from the large base of current registrars. This means they can go to market quicker because the registrars have already done the technical integration.”

Contact: Antony Van Couvering at avc[at]mindsandmachines.com