New gTLD Batching - The Art of Digital Archery

ICANN recently approved a controversial procedure for allocating New gTLD applications to evaluation batches.

With an anticipated 1,000 to 1,500 New gTLD applications ICANN will have to evaluate twice or thrice the number of applications originally envisaged. This means ICANN will have to choose which applications are going to get reviewed first.

If significantly more than 500 applications are received ICANN will create application batches. Possible allocation criteria like

- the time the application was submitted to ICANN or
- predominately random elements or
- willingness to pay (auction)

have been ruled out by ICANN. It appears that ICANN excluded purely random elements to avoid lottery accusations. An alternative could have been a batch auction, the same procedure that is applied when competing applicants for the same string exist. ICANN rejected these solutions due to unspecified negative impacts.

Instead ICANN will introduce a system that it compares to a game of digital archery. The applicant has to set a future time target and "hit" that target at the selected time. The absolute difference between the time set and time clicked is the applicant's score and determines in which batch the application is going to be processed. Accordingly domain name drop-catching experience will be an advantage.

Examples given on ICANN’s website indicate that this difference will be measured in seconds only. If multiple applications for an identical string are received, the best shot (smallest time difference) determines batch placement. Top-Level Domains like .blog or .web are therefore likely to be in the first batch since multiple applications are expected.

ICANN has not yet revealed when these individual batches are going to start but initial evaluation lasts at least 5 months. This does not include third party objections or extended evaluation. Therefore some applications are likely to be delayed substantially.

ICANN: Batching Basics