Minds + Machines Group Limited
 | |
| Type: | Public |
| Industry: | Internet, TLD Consulting |
| Founded: | 2007 |
| Founder(s): | Frederick Krueger Clark Landry |
| Headquarters: | Craigmuir Chambers, Road Town, Tortola |
| Country: | British Virgin Islands |
| Businesses: | Minds + Machines DotEco LLC dotNYC LLC |
| Website: | www.tldh.org |
| Key People | |
| Antony Van Couvering, CEO Fred Krueger, Executive Chairman Michael Salazar, CFO Caspar von Veltheim, Executive Director Guy Elliott, Non-Executive Director Keith Teare, Non-Executive Director | |
Top Level Domain Holdings Ltd. (TLDH) is the parent company of Minds + Machines. The company is dedicated to acquiring and operating new gTLDs, as well as providing consultancy services and back-end registry solutions for entities interested in operating new gTLDs. The company is publicly traded on the AIM under the ticker symbol TLDH.L.[1] Its market cap is valued at over $60 million USD.[2]
TLDH, originally known as Hecta Media Inc. was established by Frederick Krueger and Clark Landry in 2007. The company went public on November 12, 2007.[3] In 2009, the company changed its name from Hecta Media Inc. to Top Level Domain Holdings Ltd. after acquiring Minds + Machines, dotNYC LLC, and DotEco LLC in 2009.[4] Following the acquisition, Antony Van Couvering was appointed CEO of the company.[5] On July 2011, former ICANN Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush joined the company as Executive Chairman.[6] The move was a controversial moment and sparked debate about the lack of a clear conflict of interest policy at ICANN with regards to its Board and Staff, and was discussed within the U.S. Congress among other places. Mr. Thrush announced his resignation for January, 2013, only 4 months at TLDH Ltd.[7]
During the opening day of the application for ICANN's New gTLD Program on January 12, 2012, TLDH purchased 20 application slots and announced that it was chosen by Dot Kiwi Limited, a New Zealand based company, to provide registry solutions for the proposed .kiwi string.[8] On February 21, 2012, the company announced that it will purchase 20 additional application slots for gTLDs.[9]
TLDH partnered with LHL TLD Investment Partners of Beverly Hills California (LHL) to apply for the .music TLD. Minds + Machines will provide the back-end registry services for .music. LHL is composed of leading music industry personalities including artists, managers, music producers and lawyers.[10]
TLDH, through Minds + Machines, will also apply for GeoTLDs .miami for the city of Miami and [11] .nrw (North Rhine-Westphalia) on behalf of the German state of Nordrhein-Westfalen.[12]
The company reported that its total number of new gTLD applications submitted to ICANN is 92. Six of the applications were submitted through joint ventures, 18 were submitted for the clients of Minds + Machines and the remaining 68 gTLDs were submitted by the company for its own registry operations. A significant number of the gTLDs the company is applying for will be placed in contention sets, including .blog, .eco, .green .site, .immo, .hotel, .home, .casa, .love, .law, .cloud, .baby, .art, .gay, .style and .store. [13]
In-house gTLD applications[edit | edit source]
The 68 applications applied for by the company for its own operations are:[13]
.abogado, .app, .art, .baby, .beauty, .beer, .blog, .book, .casa, .cloud, .cooking, .country, .coupon, .cpa, .cricket, .data, .dds, .deals, .design, .dog, .eco, .fashion, .fishing, .fit, .flowers, .free, .garden, .gay, .green, .guide, .home, .horse, .hotel, .immo, .inc, .latino, .law, .lawyer, .llc, .love, .luxe, .pizza, .property, .realestate, .restaurant, .review, .rodeo, .roma, .sale, .school, .science, .site, .soccer, .spa, .store, .style, .surf, .tech, .video, .vip, .vodka, .website, .wedding, .work, .yoga, .zulu, .网址 (.site in Chinese), .购物 (.shopping in Chinese).[13]
A certain commentator, Alexander Drummond-Willoughby, has submitted negative comments to ICANN regarding all applications submitted by TLDH, and all applications that have designated TLDH's Minds + Machines as their registry services provider. The comments are largely identical and focus on what the individual deems poor financial decisions by the company.[14]
GAC Early Warnings[edit | edit source]
Minds + Machines received a total fo 6 GAC Early Warnings, 5 of which were for its own TLDs. This accounts for about 7% of their 72 applications, which they noted in a press release, further stating that many of their competitors and other large portfolio applicants had received much greater percentages of warned applications to total portfolio size. The in-house warned applications are: .zulu, .hotel, .green, .roma, .website. Their client, The American Bible Society, was warned for .bible.[15]
$15mm Auction Funding[edit | edit source]
On February 26 2013, TLDH announced that it had entered into a funding agreement worth $15 million to be used in the case of auction for a specific unnamed TLD. The investor will not receive ownership of the TLD but a share of future revenues. TLDH did not name the TLD that the funds are directed for, and it is in 11 head to head contentions and 12 featuring more than one contender.[16]
Partnerships[edit | edit source]
On October 11, 2012, TLDH announced they had partnered with Architelos to use their anti-registration abuse software-as-a-service, NameSentry, in their future registry operations. The software protects the end-user against phishing, malware, spam, botnets and other types of abuse. NameSentry provides both aggregate and drill-down views of abusive domain names, and automates abuse polices and procedures. This announcement came a day after the largest gTLD applicant, Donuts, announced that they were set to use the same NameSentry service.[17]
Staff[edit | edit source]
TLDH top executives particularly, Thrush and Couvering, have been involved with ICANN since its very beginnings.[18]
Peter Dengate Thrush[edit | edit source]
Mr. Thrush is a former ICANN Chairman, and he was responsible for leading the Board of Directors that approved the implementation of the New gTLD Program. His immediate decision to join TLDH as Executive Chairman after his term as ICANN Chairman expired in June, 2011, raised criticism from the global Internet community; many questioned ICANN's lack of Conflict of Interest Policy, and its general Ethics Policy.[19] The move was even cited by Sen. Ron Wyden of the U.S. Senate in a letter asking for further oversight of ICANN, and the need for a clear conflict of interest policy to be written into the next IANA contract with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which oversees ICANN's fulfillment of the IANA contract. Peter Dengate Thrush left TLDH in October, 2012.[20]
During the Senate hearings regarding the implementation of the New gTLD Program, Mr. Couvering was one of the representatives of the domain industry who signed the letter sent to Senators John Rockefeller and Kay Bailey Hutchison supporting the program. He and his colleagues reiterated ICANN's position that it is beneficial for the global internet community and it promotes innovation.[21]
Michael Salazar[edit | edit source]
Michael Salazar led ICANN's New gTLD Program, and was there for three years, before being let go as a result of prominent digital glitches, and subsequent mishandling, of the TAS (The new gTLD Application System), and also the technical failure of the Digital Archery Batching process.[7]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ TLDH Website
- ↑ How big is the new TLD opportunity? TLDH valued at $60 million, domainnamewire.com
- ↑ Niche Website are Target for Expansion
- ↑ New Investments; Proposed Board Changes
- ↑ Board Appointment-June 15, 2009
- ↑ Outgoing ICANN Chairman, Peter Dengate Thrush, Joining Minds + Machines as Executive Chairman
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 TLDH Hires Former ICANN New gTLDs Head, DomainIncite.comPublished & Retrieved 3 Dec 2012
- ↑ New gTLD Application Window Opens
- ↑ gTLD Application Update
- ↑ TLDH to apply for .music
- ↑ Minds + Machines chosen for dot MIAMI
- ↑ Minds+Machines GmbH wins dot NRW contract
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Top Level Domain Holdings Becomes Largest New gTLD Applicant to Date Applying for 68 Strings, TheDomains.comPublished June 1 2012]
- ↑ http://domainincite.com/10317-mystery-commenter-targets-mm-new-gtld-clients Myster Commenter Targets MM new gTLD Clients, DomainIncite.com]
- ↑ ICANN Prioritization Draw, TLDH.org Retrieved 1 Dec 2012
- ↑ TLDh Gets 15 Million for A Single Top Level Domain Name Auction, DomainNameWire.com Published and Retrieved 26 Feb 2013
- ↑ TLDH Architelos NameSentry, MarketWatch.com
- ↑ M+M’s parent company, TLDH, appoints Peter Dengate Thrush as Executive Chairman
- ↑ ICANN prez calls out own board over conflicts of interest
- ↑ Dengate Thrush Quits TLDH, DomainIncite.com
- ↑ Letter to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation