.UHOH

With the Public Meeting in Prague taking place less than two weeks after ICANN’s big reveal of the 1,930 new gTLD applications, it’s no surprise that certain applications and applicants were discussed openly during various sessions. For example, during the Public Forum on Thursday afternoon, a 14-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl from China (ICANN’s youngest participants ever?) stepped up to the open microphone to express her support for an open, unrestricted .KIDS gTLD. Continue reading “.UHOH”

Last Nail into the Coffin

After nearly a full week of debates, discussions, meetings, and even a handful of thinly veiled jabs from community members, the ICANN Board officially pronounced Digital Archery dead and gone today at around 2:35 PM, Prague time, during the Public Forum here at the ICANN Public Meeting.

Yes, there was applause. Continue reading “Last Nail into the Coffin”

ICANN: Why Being in the Know is Key

Early this morning, at 7:30 AM Prague time, a group of new gTLD applicants and members of the gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) gathered in a meeting room to adopt the charter for a new group, the New TLD Applicant Group, or NTAG. The group was established under the umbrella of the RySG; its charter was based off the RySG charter and the group will utilize RySG resources like a mailing list and an administrator who can set up conference calls. Continue reading “ICANN: Why Being in the Know is Key”

A Move Toward a Single Batch?

In the few days since ICANN made the decision to suspend the Digital Archery system for batching applications, discussions about next step have, not altogether unsurprisingly, focused not on how to improve Digital Archery, but alternatives to replace it entirely. Perhaps most significant is the groundswell that seems to be forming around the idea of tossing out batching completely, and instead evaluating all applications at once. Continue reading “A Move Toward a Single Batch?”

All Eyes on the GAC

Yesterday, ICANN made waves by announcing that it had suspended the Digital Archery process for batching. In the public statement, ICANN stated, “The primary reason is that applicants have reported that the timestamp system returns unexpected results depending on circumstances.” The decision came when the Digital Archery process was a mere five days away from closing – and still, only 20 percent of applicants had recorded a timestamp, or fired their digital “arrows” at that point, amounting to about 386 of the 1,930 applications. Continue reading “All Eyes on the GAC”

Competition and New gTLDs: More than Meets the .EYE

One week after ICANN revealed 1,930 applications for new gTLDs, the Internet community continues to debate the validity of many parts of the application process. In particular, a great deal of chatter kicked up over the weekend about whether or not a brand’s ownership of a generic-term gTLD is anti-competitive. This debate has been fueled largely by corporate applications for generic words as gTLDs, like Amazon’s application for .MOVIE (in fact, Google and Amazon have been taking most of the flak, given their large volume of applications). Continue reading “Competition and New gTLDs: More than Meets the .EYE”

Yogurt: An Odyssey

Despite months of troubling news from financially wrought Greece, ICANN’s gTLD Reveal last Wednesday shed light on one Greek company who seems willing to gamble on an uncertain future. In a move that signifies a tradition of innovation, Fage Dairy Industry S.A., makers of the popular Fage Greek yogurt, applied for .FAGE.

What’s more, Fage is not only the sole Greek company to apply, but also one of just three applicants from the foods services industry. McDonalds and Heinz applied for .MCD and .MCDONALDS, and .HEINZ and .KETCHUP, respectively. Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Yum Brands, Kraft, Kellogg, General Mills and other similar brands were noticeably absent from Wednesday’s excitement.

Yet as we take a closer look at Fage’s history, its application becomes less surprising. In under a century, the company has mounted an impressive rise to global dairy-stardom. Founded in 1926 in then-rural Athens, Fage remains family owned and operated. The company began national distribution in 1964, followed by exportation, first to the UK, in 1980. Exports to the U.S. began in the late 1990s, and Fage opened its first American production facility in 2008. In 2011, Fage acheived €385 million in net sales. Theirs is a story of the underdog: a mom-and-pop store that grew to international recognition, and continues to beat out food giants like Kraft and General Mills.

Today, Fage’s toughest competition is the New York based Chobani. Founded in 2005 by a Turkish immigrant, Chobani currently leads the U.S. yogurt market, but it has nowhere near Fage’s experience and it has only just begun branching out into the international market. Neither Chobani, Oikos by Dannon, nor Athenos by Kraft applied for gTLDs, so it is arguably Fage who holds the title of reigning yogurt champ – at least in the digital sphere.

Still, if Fage’s application wins points for boldness, we have to ask the obligatory question: what’s next? Part of the problem for the food industry is that, with the exception of specialty delivery services like FreshDirect and Peapod, purchases are rarely made online. How and in what capacity Fage plans to use its gTLD remains unclear, but we’re willing to guess it could become a powerful marketing tool.

It’s true that Fage could potentially face significant challenges in its Greek production centers and global supply chain, given the economic turmoil.  But the company’s presence in the gTLD frontier conveys its willingness to continue taking risks and building its brand.

Glitches Galore

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised at this point. But this morning, when we woke up and checked our email to find there had been yet another technical glitch with ICANN, we couldn’t help but groan.

Let’s go back to the New gTLD Applicant Guidebook. In early versions, ICANN requires that the primary and secondary contact for each application provide their home addresses. In the version published in January, just before the TLD Application System (TAS) opened, there was an update that assured applicants that these street addresses would not be made public. Continue reading “Glitches Galore”

The Aftermath: Reveal Day and FairWinds’ New gTLD Workshop

If you’re anything like us here at FairWinds, you’re visiting this blog while taking a break from parsing through the lengthy list of new gTLD applications that ICANN published yesterday on Reveal Day. And if you’re anything like the clients we work with, you know that the biggest takeaway from all the data is this: the way all brands do business online is about to change. Continue reading “The Aftermath: Reveal Day and FairWinds’ New gTLD Workshop”

.FAIRWINDS

Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) posted the complete list of new gTLD applicants and what they applied for. While Reveal Day is, understandably, an important and long-anticipated day, the day the Internet really began to change was June 20, 2011, when ICANN’s Board voted to approve the New gTLD Program. It was on that day that brand owners had to begin to truly consider applying for new gTLDs, weighing the potential opportunity for innovation against the risk of being left behind, should these new extensions catch on. Continue reading “.FAIRWINDS”

Survival of the Fittest

Gym chain Planet Fitness’ UDRP complaint against competitor Blast Fitness Group, filed with the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) over the domain name blastfitness.com, appeared to be a clear case of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH), but the case was not that simple. The Complainant used to actually own the BLAST FITNESS mark, which was given to it by a predecessor who operated gyms as “Blast Fitness”, but changed the name to “Planet Fitness” and cancelled the trademark. It was at that point that the Respondent registered and began to use the blastfitness.com domain name, resulting in the re-filing of the BLAST FITNESS mark by the Complainant.

The NAF Panelist ultimately ruled in favor of the Respondent despite the fact that the Complainant owns the BLAST FITNESS mark, because it found that the Respondent has legitimate rights to the domain name due to its operation of an established brand of gyms under the same name, nor did it think that the domain was registered in bad faith. Brands should take note that owning a trademark does not always ensure a favorable decision when it comes to the UDRP as evidence by this case, in which the rights and legitimate use on the part of the Respondent trumped the Complainant’s trademark ownership.

The blastfitness.com case is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, although the Complainant claims its “trademark registration with the USPTO was active at the time Respondent registered the disputed domain name” the facts show that the domain name was registered in the window between the cancellation of the Complainant’s old trademark registration and the filing of its new application. Second, this case highlights the fact that the UDRP was not designed for disputes of this complexity with subtle, factual questions going to the intent of the parties (the Complainant’s intention in abandoning its trademark and whether the Respondent intended to start up a competing fitness business at the time it registered the domain). Such matters are more properly considered in a courtroom where witnesses may be cross-examined and the veracity of evidence contested. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if that’s where this case goes next.