OnlineDomain.com Domain Name News & Opinions
The .London new extension went over 20,000 domain name registrations today as everyday more and more domain names are allocated to those who applied for .london domains during the London Priority Period that ended on the 31st of July. The registry is undertaking validation according to the priority rules for the London Priority Period. Names where there was only one applicant are in the process of being released for registration by applicants.
The .London New gTLD Priority Period was designed so that businesses and people with a London address would have priority over the rest of the world.
The .London registry has been allocating .London domains since Monday the 25th of August to the different allocation categories. The latest zone file update brings the total number of registered .London domains to 20,647. But it seems that allocation is not yet over. Here are the 7 different priority categories:
Priority 1 – London Address & Registered Trade Mark
Priority 1 – London Address & Unregistered Trade Mark/Trading Name
Priority 1 – London Address & Registered Company Name
Priority 1 – London Address & Registered Charity Name
Priority 1 – London Address & Personal Name
Priority 2 – London Address Only
Priority 3 – No London Address
I am sure that the allocation has not yet reached Priority 3 because there are no domains in the zone files with an address outside London. And it has probably not yet reached Priority 2. So there are a lot of domains to be allocated still.
Furthermore the domain names with more than 1 applicant have not yet started to be allocated. During August, names where there was only one applicant are going to be released for registration by applicants. Then, names where there remains more than one applicant with the same priority will go to auction. Auctions should run for several weeks from the end of August.
At the end of London Priority Period, if there is more than one applicant in the same priority ranking, those applicants will be invited by their registrars to participate in an auction for the applied-for domain name. The auction will then take the form of a private and closed auction via an online platform.
So far there are only 3 registrars that have more than 1,000 domain names registered with them. Mesh Digital Limited (Domainmonster) that is part of the Host Europe Group is leading with 9,293 domains. 1&1 Internet AG (United Internet AG) is second with 5,550 domains and Tucows Domains Inc. (OpenSRS / Hover) is third with 3,400 registrations. The Mind + Machines registrar is 4th with 552 domains. Mind + Machines is the company handling the .London backend.
The .London registry said they were expecting about 50,000 priority applications. Let’s see how close they are to their prediction.
The .London priority period was not without problems. Far from it. Registrars were totally unpredictable and a lot had serious problems accepting .london domain name applications.
Dot London currently does not accept registrations until 9th September. This scheduled downtime has been planned to allow for the allocation of names applied for during the London Priority Period.
From 9th September 2014, Dot London domain names will again be available for registration. From that date onwards, names will be available on a first come, first served basis via our registrars. A full list of these can be found here. Some registrars may be taking pre-registrations ahead of 9th September.
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Let me make a few comments:
1. Tucows registrations mainly (3,000) come from FastHosts which is part of the 1&1 group.
2. Publication of the .london priority ordered domains does not work by priority but by a more obscure scheme. So far, it looks like only non-conflicting domains have been assigned, i.e. those that had only one applicant and didn’t have to go to an auction. Besides, the registry seems to be processing domains by registrar. Some are still missing (101domain, Godaddy …) while others appeared late (1&1), see other blog posts a few days ago. In particular, there are almost 8,000 (!) domains registered by registrants outside of London (and partly even outside the UK). In case you would like to check WHOIS data, here are a few more or less random samples: yourlocal.london, youngprofessionals.london, wine-tasting.london, wetrot.london, wata.london.
I said that domains with more than one applicant have not been released and auctions have not even started yet.
Also people were allowed to have a non-London address in whois as long as they provided documents proving they own a London business.
Non-london applicants were allowed but were at the bottom of the priority order.
I know: “Priority 3 – No London Address”
I was just replying to a comment about 8,000 domains with no .london address and because I thought that the allocation had not yet reached Priority 3.
I think that the priority will only have been validated if the domain was under contention. If the domain wasn’t, I think it will have been allocated.
This is what I heard too. If this is true then we are going to have a lot of domains in priorities 2 and 1 that will not fulfill the requirements.
But we will never know because they were allocated together with priority 3.