According to a press release, going out tomorrow, Right Of The Dot™, LLC is launching a Contention Resolution Service for new gTLD applicants who have applied for the same or confusingly similar domain name extension as other applicants.
Right Of The Dot™, LLC is an Internet consulting firm specializing in advising existing and new TLD registries in maximizing revenue, increasing registrations and market share including board advisement, marketing, premium domain and market positioning, sales, and services.
The applications period for new gTLD’s closed just a couple of weeks ago and last week, ICANN has made the “Big Reveal”, publishing the first round of the applicants for the new gTLD and the specific extensions that were applied for by each.
There are over 1,900 applications and 751 are in direct conflict, meaning there are more than one applicant for a specific extension.
What does a company do if they find out that another company or organization has applied for the same gTLD as they have?
Under the ICANN Guidebook, parties are encouraged to work together to solve any contention privately otherwise the string will go to an auction.
Some have predicted that auction prices for contest new gTLD extensions could easily exceed $10 Million dollars.
The seasoned domain name professionals at RightOfTheDot.com have 29 years combined experience in the domain name business.
They have pioneered and innovated many of the standard services used every day in the domain industry.
Heading up the new gTLD contention resolution service for RightOfTheDot.com are two domain industry veterans and Domain Hall Of Fame Members, Michael Berkens, Esq and Monte Cahn who are uniquely positioned to advise and negotiate for companies to achieve the best outcome for contended new domain names to avoid costly auctions by bringing the applicants together to resolve the strings rather than going to auction.
Monte Cahn is Co-Founder and President of Right of the Dot™, LLC and Founder and former CEO of Moniker.com and TrafficClub.com and was the former President of SnapNames.com. Monte has been pioneering domain name and virtual property aftermarket services since 1995, with such innovations as Whois Privacy protection, Domain Escrow, domain name security, and Domain Brokerage, Auctions, Appraisals and Sales.
Monte has sold more than $300 Million domain names since 2001 and operated more than 117 ICANN Accredited Registrars after his company Moniker.com was acquired by Oversee.net in 2007.
Michael H. Berkens, Esq. is Co-Founder and Managing Director at Right of the Dot™, LLC, and Founder of Worldwide Media, Inc., and MostWantedDomains.com.
Michael holds a law degree (JD) as well as an LLM degree in Taxation from the University of Florida.
Michael’s company is one of the largest privately owned domain portfolio’s in the world and has bought, sold and evaluated hundreds of thousands of domains.
Michael’s evaluation and expertise has been tapped in several of the highest profile sales and auction events in recent years.
Since 2007 Mr. Berkens, has published a widely read blog on the domain industry at TheDomains.com which covers in almost 4,000 posts UDRP and other cases and disputes related to the various rights of domain owners, domain investors and intellectual property rights owners, as well as sales of domain names, new gTLD’s and other issues in the domain industry. With over 65,000 comments, TheDomains.com is where the domain industry comes to discuss and learn about investment opportunities in domains across all TLD’s.
Monte and Michael are domain name experts with a proven record of success in the domain industry; they are in a unique positioned because they know all the major applicants on a personal and professional level to get a successful resolution to contentious applications thereby avoiding costly auctions.
For more information, you can connect with Right Of The Dot™ in social media: follow Right Of The Dot™ on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/RIGHTOFTHEDOT or Facebook at www.Facebook.com/RIGHTOFTHEDOT.
Once the negotiating is completed, they also offer services to guide your company through the new emerging internet landscape, take it to market, and launch successfully.
For more information contact:
Monte Cahn
President / Director
(954) 288-6810
Great idea – you guys will make millions.
Smart, if these folks are staring down $10M might as well give you $1M to avoid that. Only difficulty is there are ony 751 potential customers. Big payouts but small universe.
This addition is a $100mm business over the next 20 years…very smart move.
Hello Michael,
As usual Monte takes his early Adopter Gifts to Market. One Class Act !
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
@ Michael,
Sorry I missed you, in my mention above. Hats off to the both of you!
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
“What does a company do if they find out that another company or organization has applied for the same gTLD as they have?”
1. Jump for joy – they have some “partners” to help make it happen.
2. Study the classic IS,RS,DS model pioneered by the original InterNIC and loved by the U.S. Government in cooperative (public benefit) arrangements.
3. Pick the RS and DS partners you want to be on your team. You take the IS spot.
4. Roll out market trials with your partners allowing early adopters and “Brands” to buy into your new movement.
5. Start writing big checks to heavy-hitters to endorse your movement with software and hardware solutions that lock in your gTLD. (eCurrency, etc.)
6. Sell to the market and cash out.
I can see these getting messy eventually on both sides of the coin. I registered GTLDattorney.com, I think it’s going to jump in value.
I wonder in CONgress will get involved with the gtld process once the trademark infringement claims start flying.
Congrats boys!
“…they know all the major applicants on a personal and professional level to get a successful resolution to contentious applications thereby avoiding costly auctions”
With all due respect. You may want to consider the recent ICANN decisions that have been made regarding “auctions”, “batching”, etc.
Also, you may want to study the background of the new ICANN CEO as well as the recent comments of the out-going ICANN CEO.
HINT: The new ICANN CEO is a known stone-waller via endless circular negotiations where the parties pay all the bills and end up with nothing in the end. In other words, ICANN plans to be the ubber contention resolution service.
All of the above is well-scripted and will be played out in the next few weeks.
Many Applicants will be at the 100% Refund table which ICANN is expected to re-open to allow players out of the game. The GAC with the U.S. Government has seen enough and plans to reduce many contentions.
I am not sure in what capacity you are using the word “Contention” and what relevancy it has, if any in the resolution process for gTLD applicants. Of what consequence, and how much persuasion your services will weigh in increasing the chances of an applicant getting a sought after gTLD? Possibly in the capacity of by being a neutral third party, and helping with dispute resolution, but as an instrument of persuasion with ICANN, me think’s it’s money better spent lobbying elsewhere.
@ MHB
Congratulations, the two of you make a potent force, lets hope that you use this force to do good for the Internet community as a whole.
PS: has this press release already been out, you might want to correct these:
“to achieve the best outcome for CONTENDED new domain names to avoid costly auctions”
“they are in a unique POSITIONED because they know all the major applicants”
–
Dean
Contention is what they are calling it when 2 or more applicants apply for the same new gTLD string or one confusingly similar
“Contention is what they are calling it when 2 or more applicants apply for the same new gTLD string…”
The U.S. Government and their GAC Sock.Puppet is never going to allow “exclusive” gTLDs in the servers they control.
The I* crowd which controls ICANN and the so-called Eco.System also do not support the “exclusive gTLD” model. They do not even support the notion that someone “owns” domains or “owns” address space (spectrum). You lease from them. They own everything, but claim they are just stewards (with high pay).
Lastly, the new Peer-2-Peer technology completely wipes out “contention” because there is no single point of control/takedown. Governments call it “the most dangerous software ever written”. The I* crowd does not seem to know how to destroy it (co-opt it), but they are working on that.
In summary, “contention” does not exist and everyone will be expected to listen to the latest plans (scripts) from the ICANN Star.Chamber in the next few weeks.
Thanks for playing – enjoy the show – the script is clever
It takes a guy with a ego the size of Texas (Monte) to mitigate tensions (new gTLD “Contentions”) between folks with even bigger egos trying to reinvent their successes in .com.
Monte is in his element – he is a kid in a candy store with this.
“There are over 1,900 applications and 751 are in direct conflict, meaning there are more than one applicant for a specific extension”
.Congrats to you both, that’ll keep you very busy for…. a few decades ! 🙂
“It takes a guy with a ego the size of Texas to mitigate tensions…”
If you want to see ego, just wait until the new ICANN CEO takes the stage this week.
Then, note the terms and conditions of the new CEO’s opaque (secret) deal.
…and for your after-dinner dessert you may find out the new (secret) role of the out-going ICANN CEO.
Then toss out the Applicant Guide, direct your clients to the Refund Desk, and ask how much of your time you want to waste in the next 2 years. Very little has changed since 1995.
This is simply brilliant. Congratulations Mike.
My guess is that we are going to see all kinds of random partnerships formed to avoid expensive auctions.
“we are going to see all kinds of [random] partnerships formed”
“we are going to see all kinds of partnerships formed”
Yes…but….the partnerships are not within the “domain industry”.
The partnerships cut across all sorts of industries and regions of the world.
Examples:
The recent leak from China on the new [标志性的] Top Level Domains that will be shipping in PC motherboards caught the IETF & ICANN off-guard.
In the 2000 ICANN Beauty Round people were not prepared, like they are now. There is also a much larger market that the ISOC, IETF, ICANN insiders can not control.
Sell to the market(s)… 🙂
http :// www. ntia. doc. gov/speechtestimony/2012/keynote-speech-lawrence-e-strickling-assistant-secretary-commerce-communication
“…often designed to limit direct participation, or at least make it difficult for others to participate. Top-down regulatory models too often can fall prey to rigid procedures, bureaucracy, capture by incumbents and stalemate”
Is he describing ICANN ?
The bigger brands are not likely to engage in partnerships with others, they are in the habit of acquiring what they want in whole, by using the auction system they don’t have to worry about negotiating with others, all they have to do is to simply out bid everyone else which is not that difficult for them since they have so much capital to work with.
Everyone will have to go all in for the auctions which requires having huge reserves of capital. The super big brands will end up getting all the valuable gTLDs that are in contention and everyone else will have to be content with getting the scraps.
(just my opinion)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ViIDVwoJUQU#! 🙂
“The bigger brands are not likely to engage in partnerships with others…”
ICANN has created a mess by allowing .BRAND Applicants to aspire to a non-hierarchical name-space. Those companies are apparently going to be happy
with a parked name for $25,000 per year. If those names are resolved, there will probably be additional charges simply because the companies have distinguished themselves as having semi-infinite deep pockets. The ICANN process has certainly caused some interesting human behavior to emerge.
As for “the bigger brands” who are Applicants for a truly generic piece of the name-space, they may find themselves chasing one new emerging innovation after another, just to keep up. There are many changes that have yet to be disclosed**. If those Applicants choose to re-invent all the new changes coming it could cost them billions of dollars, and years. It seems unlikely that companies (big or small) will throttle their venture by not partnering. Most big companies are happy to partner and out-source to get to their end goal. Some big companies thrive on that, they simply put their brand on the service, and collect the profits.
** People helping Applicants plan their life after “the Big Reveal” will have to stay ahead of the game to properly advise clients. All of the Applicants will be targets for new services and partnerships. Also, some gTLDs may become abandoned if all the Applicants drop out as they see how steep the road gets from here on out.
Congrats and Good luck guys!!!
“some gTLDs may become abandoned if all the Applicants drop out”
It should also be noted that there are thousands of gTLDs in the works that are NOT mentioned in any ICANN Applicant Process.
One of the most surprising aspects of the ICANN Process and The.Big.Reveal was how carefully the big Applicants **avoided** collisions.
The Single-Symbol (8-bit) and Two-Symbol (so called ccTLDs) were of course not allowed near the ICANN Process.
Other Three-Symbol gTLDs in the works were apparently avoided. That will reduce “contentions”. There are no Applicants, but that does not reduce the interest in those gTLDs.
Congrats!
Hello Michael, and guest commentators!
We all need to be aware that money velocity drives Markets.
Great timing on an issue which needs front and center attention !
With all due respect:
All of this will mean nothing , if UDRPs and the uncertainty and ease with which Felons can try to steal Virtual Business Fondations from their rightful owners is not Checked.
Everything we speak of is tied to the secondary markets Valuations , the cash cow engines that supply the catalyst for our Industry.
The cuurent situation of uncertainty severely impacts and suppresses Secondary Market Valuations!
Uncertainty in Stock Markets cause Bear Narkets. I think you know the far reaching implications here.
Time for our Industry leaders to stop being complacent on this issue, don’t you all think?
How many times does the canary need to show up D.O.A ? Your assets depend on this.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Ambitious… Interesting… Smart…
SuperPotential… Groundbreaking. . .
~Patricia Kaehler – Ohio USA – DomainBELL
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This is very good move to introduce the this new service which makes some work easy for developers.