Donuts discusses first new TLD auction results.
New TLD applicant Donuts participated in six private auctions to resolve contention sets. It won one of the auctions and lost the other five. Here is a statement from the company about the results so far.
Donuts won the bidding for .PHOTOGRAPHY. According to the auction agreement terms, we’ll be the sole remaining applicant for that TLD. Final bids are confidential as you know.
Some are speculating that we or other bidders are intentionally losing auctions merely to collect from winning bidders. Speaking for Donuts, our strategy is to acquire gTLDs. We were very active in the auctions — we placed bids totaling more than $8 million over the course of this round.
Each TLD, however, has its own unique circumstances. We’re resourced to win all auctions, private or ICANN, but at the same time have made careful judgments about values of contested strings. We’ll avoid getting carried away and bidding beyond reasonable valuation assessments.
For the record, we’re still standing behind the applicant auction as the best means of resolving contention. They are a fair and efficient method to solve competition for resources.
monte says
Andrew you have done a great job of reporting on the new TLDs and private auction status.
As you have reported, apparently revealing open auction details has been important to some of the participants in the last round of auctions. However, complete confidentiality and privacy is also as or more important to the majority of the applicants in contention sets yet to commit to an auction provider.
So far we have heard a lot of open details about this first auction set – such as total price paid, winners and losers, etc. We were able to calculate an average bid price paid per string, and of course we continue to hear Donuts plug Application Auction as their preferred auction solution provider for obvious reasons.
However, there is another choice for those not wanting to be forced into one auction provider and one auction type. RightOfTheDot offers most applicants the best solutions to address their contention resolution needs. Applicants have the option of auction type (single silent sealed bid, step clock, live, etc), option of setting an auction date decided by the participants in the contention set – not the auction provider, and agreeing on when, who, and how funds are distributed from the winning bid (distribution to non winning bidders, in what % or a third party charity, etc.). Applicants also have the option of complete transparency or complete privacy on who wins and for what price.
As you can see that from the 63 available “Donuts only” contention sets to be resolved in first auction, only 6 sets were resolved. 5 of those 6 going to winning bidders other than Donuts, who stated over and over that they were going to “win” them all. Hats off to them. They ironically did “win” by NOT winning and being paid for 83% of the strings they participated in and lost. That of course is part of the game and a well thought out strategy on their behalf.
We, however, continue to hear from the majority of applicants, that a single sealed bid model where a sealed bid is submitted by courier and no extended time commitment is needed, where submitting the full payment to escrow without having to worry about deposit percentage to total bid price calculations are not needed, and where reliance of the internet and connectivity, for multiple days – (3-10 days) and multiple rounds (10 – 25+ rounds) and where time zone conversions are not necessary. These options and choices happen to be more important to most applicants than the offering available by application auction.
Having conducted more auctions, of all types in the domain industry, I can confidently state that RightOfTheDot has what the majority of the applicants feel to be the best, safest, most efficient, most flexible and fairest solution available to resolve contention between competing applicants for the industry.
Hopefully our friends at Donuts will also be flexible when the majority of the applicants, in the rest of their contention sets choose another provider. Hopefully they will not be the hold out and still comply with their desire to resolve contention, rather than going to the last resort ICANN auction where nobody wins…but ICANN.
Hope this helps clarify that there is another contention resolution auction option available to those in need.
John Berryhill says
“…the last resort ICANN auction where nobody wins… but ICANN”
…the California Public Benefit Corporation.
Mansour says
Do you know how difficult it is to spell .PHOTOGRAPHY
Good Luck.