During a Webinar today, ICANN announced it is intending to hold the first round of the ICANN Last Resort auction starting in October for those Contention sets which DO NOT include community applications.

Auctions are also not expected for strings that have outstanding objections in the first group of strings.

Under the ICANN Guidebook, Last resort auctions are to be held in groups at set times. So the October auctions will be the first set not the only or the last set.

Much more information on the ICANN auction process is promised by the next ICANN meeting in South Africa.

This week the first private new gTLD auctions are being held, however it is unknown how many strings are being auctioned.

At least two major players have taken the position that they are not interested in participating in private auctions.