Reglikedomain industry desk

17 fresh top level domain registry contracts signed

Finally some progress for fresh TLD applicants, but it’s slow.

ICANN has updated its statistics through yesterday for the number of fresh top level domain contracts it has signed.

It signed 13 contracts this past week. 12 of those were signed by Donuts, which leaves just one other firm signing an agreement this stretch. (Unless some of the contracts Donuts signed haven’t been fully executed.)

Given that eleven of the contracts Donuts signed this stretch are not IDNs, this seems to indicate there has been a holdup completing registry agreements with a number of IDN applicants, which are at the beginning of the queue. Here’s one example of an IDN applicant facing holdups.

The stats show that 17 contracts went “out for signature” this stretch, but that includes the 13 executed ones. So four additional contracts are likely to be signed in the near future.

Also on the wire

Other reporting from the domain desk.

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