The Application Program for the New Round of New gTLDs

If you are considering applying for and operating your own Brand TLD, it's important to start analyzing the risks and opportunities of the New gTLD program as soon as possible. Undertaking competitor analysis, risk assessments, and feasibility studies, as well as gaining a general understanding of the application process and the ICANN world, are all recommended steps. For example: 

• Market Analysis: What are my competitors doing? What are big brands doing? Did other companies in my industry apply in 2012?
• Benefits & Risks: What benefits could be achieved and what are the potential risks of participating or not in the new round?
• Feasibility & Decision-Making: How do I gather and present data for our go/no-go decision?
• Application Process: What does it take to apply for and run a Brand TLD and what are the costs and timeline? 
   

As part of our domain name management service, we provide a dedicated New gTLD service to support brand owners to navigate this decision-making process effectively. We assisted a dozen brands in the first round of New gTLD applications we are now operating their Brand TLDs in compliance with ICANN policies. 

Thomsen Trampedach, our center of excellence for domain name management, supported many companies in the first round of New gTLDs, including: 

Step 1: Planning  

We facilitate analysis and preparations to help inform your go/no-go decisions, including: 

—Feasibility Studies/Risk Assessments: Will the investment pay off? Do you face the risk of objections from third parties, governments, or ICANN? Are you in conflict with any third-party trademarks? Is your gTLD string in conflict with any ISO codes/geographical indications/International Governmental Organization (IGO) names? Could your string be interpreted as offensive to public morality and order in foreign languages, or could it be interpreted as a “sensitive or a generic string?” 

—Concept of Use and Roll-Out Plan (short/mid/long term): How will you use your own Brand TLD? Should it be for internal use only or should you allow subsidiaries, resellers, customers, and partners to register domain names in the gTLD too? How will it impact your current domain name and online branding strategy? 

—Budgeting: What are the internal and external costs related to applying for and operating a Brand TLD? 

—Project Planning and Management: How much can you do on your own and how much should you outsource to partners? What should the ownership structure be within your organization (which legal entity should apply)? What is the purpose, policy, or concept of use for the new TLD? What are the key milestones? Who will negotiate with registry service providers (backend system), and WHOIS data escrow providers, registrars, and monitoring companies? What documents and data do you need? 

Step 2: Applying 

Applying for a New gTLD is a time-consuming and technical task. We are here to assist you in preparing your application, including demonstrating your internal and external technical and operational capabilities, and financial capabilities.   

—Preparation: Thomsen Trampedach, our center of excellence for domain name management and New gTLDs will assist by drafting and gathering the necessary documents including: 

• List of directors and board members
• Copy of annual reports
• Letter of fund commitments
• Budgets (expected/worst/best case scenarios)
• Internal cost allocation schemes
• IDN tables
• IT risk assessment plans
• Letter of support/non-objections from third parties
• Various technical documents provided by registry service providers 

A New gTLD application in the 2012 round typically consisted of 250 pages and around 50 supporting documents. All of our New gTLD clients exceeded the threshold for passing ICANN’s evaluation. 

—Application: We will assist in drafting the application and all supporting documents, including all required policies and contracts, such as 

• Registration and use policies
• Anti-abuse policies
• DNSSEC policies
• Launch policies
• Premium name policies
• Terms and conditions
• Registry-Registrar agreements 

—Evaluation/Guidance: In the 2012 round, we successfully guided our New gTLD clients through the application process and any unforeseen obstacles, such as GAC advice (sensitive strings, closed generics), clarifying questions (enhanced security measurements), name collision occurrence management, geo-panel objections, legal rights objections, community priority objections, and auctions. 

Step 3: Launch and Operation 

We will guide you through all launch phases and help you with the coordination and communication of the actual delegation and launch of your TLD, including managing the following key steps: 

• Registry agreement with ICANN (including specification 13 and request for release of country names and two characters domains, or any IDN scripts)
• Contracts with registrars
• Connection to the Trademark Clearinghouse
• Pre-delegation tests
• Registry website creation and tests
• Name collision management
• Launch phases
• ICANN reports and audits
• Ongoing communication with ICANN and providers
• Anti-abuse and complaint management
• Management of all invoices (ICANN and service providers)
• Updates on ICANN policies  

In the 2012 round, we gained experience with all types of challenges and types of gTLD applications such as cultural TLDs, geographical TLDs, IDNs, and community-based gTLD applications. We also have considerable experience overcoming GEO objections, providing GAC advice, and guiding clients through the management of sensitive strings, closed generic issues, and enhanced security requirements. 

As important, our New gTLD concept is flexible. You can choose to work with us in any phase of your project or outsource all the tasks including the operational tasks to us. 

Our New gTLDs service helps brand owners assess, prepare, and apply for Brand TLD assets. If you would like to find out more, including starting the process to register gTLD domains, watch our webinar 'Unleashing Brand Power with ICANN’s New gTLDs' or contact our dedicated team today. 

This article was updated in March 2025 to reflect the new timeframes published by ICANN.