Donuts Sends Comment To ICANN Complaining About A .Shop Community Application

newgtldDonuts sent ICANN a comment  regarding the Community  Priority  Evaluation Application  by  GMO Registry,  Inc.  for  .Shop New gTLD.

From what I have seen most community application have no merit, including the controversial .gay application. Companies get a few letters from a few organizations and apply for a community application just to avoid a bidding war with other applicants.

Here are a few highlights from the comment:

This  comment  is  being  submitted  on  behalf  of  Donuts  Inc.  (“Donuts”)  concerning  the above referenced  New  gTLD  application  (the  “Application”).
Donuts  supports and  joins  in  the analysis  of  the  Application  recently  submitted by Radix  Registry  (“Radix”).
To  the  extent it  may further  assist  the  Panel, Donuts highlights  the  deficiencies of  the  Application  in  the  context  of the  community  scoring  criteria  of  the  New  gTLD  Applicant  Guidebook.

  • The  “Community”  Is  Not  “Organized.”
  • “[t]here  is  no  worldwide  coordinating  body  representing  the  entire  community”
  • The  “Community”  Is  Neither  “Clearly  Delineated”  Nor  “Pre Existing.”
  • The  Application  Cannot  Ascribe  a Size to the  Alleged  Community.
  • The  “Community”  Has  No  “Longevity.”
  • The  String  .SHOP  Does  Not  “Match”  the  “Name”  of  Any  “Community.”
There  is  also  no  evidence  that  GMO  “has  otherwise  documented  authority  to represent  the  community,” or  that  any  of  the  entities  that  have  expressed  support for  GMO’s  Application serve  in  that role.
Donuts  does  not  dispute  that GMO’s  application  in  general  is competently  executed.
However,  more  than  this  is  required to  meet  the intentionally highly rigorous CPE criteria.
ICANN  has  deliberately set  a  “high  bar” to  avoid  the  use  of  the  community  label  by  those seeking  to  use  it  to  exclude  other  bona  fide  applications (e.g. a  “false positive”).
A generic  word like “SHOP” cannot possibly describe a “community” as that  concept  is  defined  by  the New  gTLD program, and the  CPE Panel  should  have  little  difficulty  in  finding  that  at  least three out  of  the 16  possible  points  should  be  deducted to  disqualify  the  Application  from community  priority.
Indeed,  the  analysis  that  Donuts  has  gone  through  herein  shows  GMO  losing  13  of  the  16  point  otherwise  available  to  it.    Only five  total points were awarded  to  the  analogous  strings. LLC,  .INC,  .GMBH  and  .LLP.
No  more  than three appear  achievable  here,  but  even if  the  number were  four  times  as  high,  the  Application  would  not and  it  cannot qualify  for  community priority.
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About Konstantinos Zournas

I studied Computer Engineering and Computer Science in London, UK and I am now living in Athens, Greece. I went online in 1995, started coding in 1996 and began buying domain names and creating websites in 2000. I started the OnlineDomain.com blog in 2012.

One comment

  1. How in the world .hotel was approved as a community is still beyond me.

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