Applicants concerned that rival has a big-money backer.
At least two applicants for the .web top level domain name are asking for this month’s auction to be postponed.
Radix and Schlund Technologies GmbH sent letters to ICANN that state:
We support a postponement of the .WEB auction to give ICANN and the other applicants time to investigate whether there has been a change of leadership and/or control of another applicant, NU DOT CO LLC. To do otherwise would be unfair, as we do not have transparency into who leads and controls that applicant as the auction approaches.
Nu Dot Co is the new top level domain company set up by Juan Diego Calle of .co fame.
I suspect the parties have heard that another company is now bankrolling the .web auction for Nu Dot Co. This is what happened with .blog, in which Automattic (WordPress) was able to anonymously participate in the auction by working with a third-party applicant. (You can listen to Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg explain why here.)
It’s a bit ironic for Radix to call this unfair and ask for a postponement given that it did the same thing to acquire the .tech domain name.
The .web auction is scheduled for July 27.
“Ironic” being the more neutral and diplomatic option among 2 words you might have chosen …