.gratis

Status:	Delegated
Type:	Generic
Category:	Commerce
Priority #:	397 - Uniregistry, Corp. 800 - Donuts (Pioneer Tigers, LLC)
More information:

.gratis is a gTLD that was proposed in ICANN's New gTLD Program. Donuts won the rights to the string over Uniregistry in a Private auction. The Donuts application succeeded and was delegated to the Root Zone on 23 April 2014, making Donuts the Registry Operator for the string.

Background

Registry Operator

1. Donuts (Pioneer Tigers, LLC), one of 307 applications by the company. This applicant submitted a Public Interest Commitment, which can be downloaded here.

Previous Applicant

1. Uniregistry, Corp., one of 54 applications submitted by domainer Frank Schilling's company.

European Commission Communiqué

The European Commission flagged the application for .gratis outside of ICANN's defined remediation processes.

Just after ICANN's GAC issued its Early Warnings, which are advice given from one GAC member country to an applicant warning it of potential issues within its application, the European Commission issued a letter to all applicants within the New gTLD Program. The letter highlights 58 applications that "could raise issues of compatibility with the existing legislation .. and/or with policy positions and objectives of the European Union." It notes a desire to open a dialogue with each offending applicant.

The Commission specifically notes that this objection is not a part of the GAC Early Warning process, and goes on to note that "the Commission does not consider itself legally bound to ICANN processes," given that there is not legal agreement between the two bodies.

Private Deal

In February 2014, it was reported that Uniregistry and Donuts reached a private deal which resolved a number of New gTLD string contention sets involving only the two companies. Although the deal coincided with a round of Private Auctions conducted by Applicant Auction on February 18th, neither companies immediately commented on the nature of the deal and Applicant Auction did not disclose the participants of its recent auctions. If the companies had participated in a private auction, it would mark the first private auctions that Uniregistry participated in, after the company initially questioned the legality of private auctions in the New gTLD Program.

In the private deal, Donuts became the sole applicant for .gratis, .furniture, and .auction, while Uniregistry won .audio and .juegos.

Contract Signed

On 20 March 2014 Donuts received a Registry Agreement signed by ICANN for .gratis after passing all the required processes needed to become a Registry Operator for the string.

Delegation and Availability

.gratis was delegated to the Root Zone of the DNS on 23 April, 2014, completing the successful application for the string.

Governmental Advisory Committee. Considers and provides advice on the activities of ICANN as they relate to concerns of governments, particularly matters where there may be an interaction between ICANN's policies and various laws and international agreements or where they may affect public policy issues (ICANN Bylaws).