dotBrands Part 1 – 2012 Round Application Status

An analysis of the .brand landscape

This will be the first of a three part blog reviewing .brand gTLDs applied for in 2012. Part one will review the status of .brand applications that made up nearly half of all applications to ICANN. The second part will provide an analysis on the stats and activity of the .brand gTLDs delegated thus far with a macro view and the third article will take a more focused look at .brand gTLDs based in Germany.

We are approaching four years since ICANN’s application window closed for gTLD applications. As of 31 Jan 2016, 307 gTLDs have been delegated from a total of 713 .brand applications which were filed for 698 unique strings.

Five .brand applications remain “On-Hold” four of which consist in a contention set for .MERCK and .MERCKMSD and the fifth application for .RAM is assigned with this status based on GAC advice. For the .MERCK strings, ICANN recently prevailed in the IRP (Independent Review Process) over Merck KGaA and it is expected to advance through the application process in the near term.

Seven applications maintain a status of “Will Not Proceed” likely awaiting final actions by the applicant to withdraw their applications pending any final dispute resolution or deficiencies.

.AMAZON, XN–CCKWCXETD, XN—JILQ480n2RG
.CHANGIAIRPORT
.DELMONTE
.TATA
.ULTRABOOK

The remaining 276 .brand applications, not yet delegated, have signed their Registry Agreements with ICANN, and thus it’s just a question of time before all .brands have been delegated to the DNS root. At least a total of 585 .brand gTLDs will be delegated at the completion of this round.

Take note, one .brand, .DOOSAN will be the first 2012 round gTLD to be removed from the DNS root and at the conclusion of January 2016 http://nic.doosan no longer resolves.

The chart below depicts the .brand gTLDs as assigned by Sector that are delegated (red) and pending delegation (blue) via ICANN’s process. Sector definitions are first based off the sector assignment for a company that is publicly traded; else a subjective assignment is placed on its largest natural industry served.

It’s expected that all .brands will be delegated before the close of 2016. The bigger question that remains is how they will be used and what will be the adoption take-up rates by their customers. The next part of this blog series will provide some greater insights on current activity of the .brand gTLDs.

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