ICANN: the big reveal of gTLD applications

Finally the wait is over! After months of speculation, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) revealed last Wednesday who has applied for which generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) names.  The results are here.  If you haven't already read all about them -- and even if you have -- the IPKat and Merpel are pleased to tell you a thing or two about them.

For the number cruncher/statistic junkies out there, this Kat can tell you ...

1. there were a total of 1,930 applications (after refunds).

2. Of these 1,930 applications:

• 1,846 were are 'standard'.
• 84 were 'community-based'.
• 66 were 'geographical'.
• 116 were in non-Latin scripts.
• 3 sought support under the ICANN’s Applicant Support Program.

3. Applications were received from 60 countries:

• 911 from North America.
• 675 from Europe.
• 303 from the Asia-Pacific region.
• 24 from Latin America and the Caribbean.
• 17 from Africa.

4. The most popular gTLD strings were:  

• .app (13 applications)
• .inc (12 applications)
• .home (11 applications)
• .art (10 applications)
• .blog, .book, .llc, .shop, and .site (9 applications each)
• .design, .movie and .music (8 applications each)
• .cloud, .hotel, .love, .ltd, .mail, .news, .store, and .web (7 applications each)
• .baby, .corp, .cpa, .gmbh, .law, .now, .online, .tech, and .vip (6 applications each)
• .buy, .free, .game, .group, .sale, .style, and .tickets (5 applications each)

The 60 day comment period began on Wednesday, which lets anyone in the world submit comments on any application and provides for an evaluation panel to consider them.  If anyone believes that they have grounds to object, they can file a formal objection to an application within 7 months [The IPKat is astonished that it is considered to need so long -- seven months -- to formulate an ICANN objection and send it in. In the UK, where things move more swiftly, we can set up an IP review, appoint its members, give it its terms of reference, make the call for evidence-based evidence -- or something like that -- receive the evidence, read it, reject the bits that don't fit, call for a public response, respond to the public response, leak our proposals, publish our proposals and get adopted as a government-adopted plan for reforming IP in, well, just a matter of months ...].

The IPKat and Merpel note with some relief that there were no applications for .cat or .kat.  They wonder if it is worth passing the proverbial hat around to readers, in order to obtain the necessary funds to make their application in the next round. Clarification: the kats knew about the Catalan .cat all along: they only stated that they were pleased that there no applications for it.  As for .kat, they think they may have to wait a little longer before the necessary funds come flooding in ...