Strike deal to run .country — Uniregistry, TLDH
Two firms will take equal equity in joint venture to run .country top level domain name.
The two applicants for the top level domain name .country have entered into an agreement to partner, rather than fight, over .country.
Top Level Domain Holdings issued a press release this morning announcing the deal between its firm and Frank Schilling’s firm, Uniregistry.
This is the first publicly disclosed agreement that will resolve a contention set, as no other firms applied for .country.
Under the terms of the deal, both firms will get a 50% stake in a fresh firm to which the .country contract with ICANN will be transferred.
ICANN has encouraged competitors to work out their differences in a way that would not require substantial changes to the original application to run a TLD. It appears the firms believe they’ve found a way to do this:
Under the conditional heads of terms for the proposed joint venture, either Uniregistry or TLDH will withdraw its application and, once the surviving applications is approved by ICANN, the authority to operate .country will be transferred to the fresh joint venture. The transfer will require ICANN approval, which the directors of the Firm fully expect to be forthcoming.
Both TLDH and Uniregistry representatives have stated they won’t participate in private auctions, one of the ways to resolve a contention set prior to an ICANN auction, due to concerns regarding antitrust violations.
