ICANN publishes updated fresh TLD Auction schedule

Delays now require all-party consent, so contention set resolution ought to accelerate.

ICANN has published an updated “auction of last resort” schedule for fresh top level domain names.

It’s harder for individual applicants to postpone these auctions now that the framework for handling name collisions is finalized.

Postponements are now only possible if all parties in the contention set agree to the postponement. In that case, auctions can be postponed up to two months from their original date.

The next set of auctions will take place in September, unless they’re resolved by the parties ahead of time. On the schedule for September are .buy, .tech, .coach, .vip, .flowers, .ltd and .health.

Sources tell me that some of the TLDs on this list have by now been settled privately. We’ll see that a lot going forward: last minute settlements ahead of an ICANN auction.

There are benefits to settling contention sets privately. Losers in ICANN auctions only get a modest refund on their applications, whereas private settlements typically involve a payoff. Also, ICANN auction prices are public whereas private ones are not.

ICANN has held only one auction of last resort so far: .信息 was auctioned for $600,000.