With ICANN's recent announcement of the release of the infamous blocked "Name Collision" domain names, we're forecasting a flurry of registrations and so we want to clarify how we expect the Name Collision domains to roll out so as to keep the frenzy as orderly as possible.
First off, here's what we mean by name collisions, in domain name jargon:
"Name Collisions" are terms which, in conjunction with certain top-level domains, can cause problems in resolving a name to the right address. Specifically, these problems are related to the boundaries between private name spaces and the public DNS system. All the potentially dangerous or otherwise problematic terms (in terms of security and privacy) had previously been pre-emptively disallowed by ICANN.
Name collision happens when a resource on an internal network has the same name as a domain name. Most people don't give things on internal networks names like example.com, for example, because it was likely that naming it anything ending in .com would naturally result in name collision. But with the release of new gTLDs, extensions that many never expected would be used in the public DNS system are now being made available for registration.
The list of domains ICANN blocked from being registered, then, corresponds to what they considered were names most likely to be used on internal networks.
Now that ICANN believes that the risk for some of these domains has been effectively mitigated, they are allowing these "safe" domains, previously off-limits, to be registered.
EAP (Early Access Program) is Donuts' version of the Landrush phase (the one between the Sunrise and GoLive phase). The EAP lasts 7 days, and was originally conceived of as a way to offer domains which had not been registered during Sunrise at a higher price, which then progressively diminishes each day, until bottoming out three days before the GoLive phase. (For details on how EAP works, see our blog post.)
In the case of former "Name Collisions", these terms will be offered to the public using the same rollout scheme as EAP (progressively diminishing price over a seven-day period) even though the gTLDs in question are already in the GoLive phase.
Donuts, with a portfolio containing hundreds of gTLDs, has chosen to sell domains associated with their gTLDs by theme.
The second theme released, which has been in progress since Wednesday June 17, is the "BUSINESS" theme. This includes the following extensions:
The list of name collisions under each TLD is available at the links above (in CSV format). Many prime domains are available, such as ftp.services, internet.solutions, and web.agency, thought we can't make any promises about their availability by the time the price drops low enough to fit your budget ;)
The EAP prices (at A rates, not including any applicable tax) will vary by day, and will be approximately as follows:
- Day 1 (June 17, 2015 at 16:00 UTC): +$12,667
- Day 2 (June 18, 2015 at 16:00 UTC): +$4,222
- Day 3 (June 19, 2015 at 16:00 UTC): +$1,778
- Day 4 (June 20, 2015 at 16:00 UTC): +$945
- Days 5-7 (June 21-24, 2015 at 16:00 UTC): +$189
Note: The prices above do not include the base price of the TLD itself, which may itself be considered "premium" by the Registry. Also, the EAP prices are only payable when creating a domain. On renewal, you would pay the normal price for that extension (or the premium price if the domain is considered as such).
Register a domain under one of these TLDs?:
