Companies ask for independent review in .radio decision.
Three applicants for the .radio top level domain name have filed for the Independent Review Process (IRP) after losing out to a community applicant.
Donuts, Afilias and BRS Media all lost their bids for the .radio domain name after European Broadcasting Union (EBU) prevailed in the Community Priority Evaluation. EBU scored 14 of 16 points, the minimum required to gain community status.
The three losing applicants subsequently filed a Request for Reconsideration (which was denied) and a request for information through ICANN’s Documentary Information Disclosure Policy (which ICANN said requested information protected non-disclosure).
Now the applicants are turning to IRP (pdf) in a final bid to get the decision overturned.
Regardless of the technical merits of the case, I don’t think most people in the community expected a domain name like .Radio to be awarded to a group like European Broadcasting Union through the community standards.
This, and after .gay losing the CPE for being not gay enough and then too far reaching, I can honestly say the entire CPE process is broken. ICANN has no interest in fixing a broken process because they think they’re going to make millions and millions in auctions. Most of these TLDs are abysmal failures-there are many people to blame as to why-but ICANN is eagerly waiting to cash checks rather than address these issues.