Earlier today, we successfully completed our first private auction for generic Top Level Domains  (gTLDs). The auction resolved contention for the 6 participating gTLDs: .club, .college, .luxury, .photography, .red, and .vote. Auction winners will pay a total of $9.01M. All other participants will be paid from these funds in exchange for withdrawing their application.

The first Applicant Auction is taking place this week, and will include participants with single and multiple gTLDs in contention. Both large and small participants recognize the value that an early resolution in an unbiased marketplace brings to their strings and organizations. 

We received several emails and phone calls with thoughtful comments on the proposed plan for the first Applicant Auction and have made several small changes to the plan. The final terms will be sent to applicants who requested the RFC, and you can still register your interest on the form seen here. There will be a mock auction on May 23rd, and the first round of the auction will take place on May 28th.

​We just completed our workshop at the ICANN46 Meeting in Beijing. We really enjoyed meeting with various stakeholders and new gTLD Applicants. We have collected your feedback, and are currently drafting a plan for the first auction, to be held in May.