Digital Archery

Digital Archery is a mechanism developed by the ICANN to determine the processing time or batch slots for each gTLD application using "target time variance." Digital archery was approved by ICANN during a special meeting of the ICANN Board on March 28. 2012.

Applicants must follow the four steps in the digital archery batching process:

• Step 1: Applicants will enter their batching preference (target date and time) in an online batching system. For example: Target Date: 11 June 2012 and Target Time: 08:00:00 EST
• Step 2: Applicants must re-enter the online batching system to generate the message sent by the system indicating their target time and date. The online batching system will then record when the message was received. For example: Message Received Date: 11 June 2012 and Message Received Time: 08:00:03)
• Step 3: The secondary time stamp will be calculated by the system using the time variance between step one (when the applicant entered his/her target time) and step two (when the message received date/time was generated/recorded). The example shows that the secondary time stamp between step one and step two is 3 secs. An application will be included in an earlier batch to be processed if the time stamp is closer to 0- if an applicant selected to participate in the earliest batch to be processed.
• Step 4: The batching selection process will combine the applicant's batching preferences, the secondary time stamp and the geographic region of a specific new gTLD application to determine its batch sequence.

Digital archery was suspended on June 23, 2012, following complaints that there were unexpected variances in the results of the process due to various circumstances, including network latency.

Complaints Against Digital Archery

Criticisms from ARI Registry Services

Adrian Kinderis, CEO of ARI Registry Services criticized digital archery, describing it as a feeble solution to a problem. He said, "Batching is a solution to a problem that I’m not sure exists any more. ICANN has a large number of single applicants going for a large number of domains, and that has to create some operational efficiencies." He said that he is in talks with some of the big registries and they are waiting for ARI Registry's move and they will join the bandwagon to stop the digital archery. The Intellectual Property Constituency is also against the digital archery.

Melbourne IT Requests for Delay

Theo Hnarakis, CEO of Melbourne IT, also asked ICANN to delay the implementation of the digital archery to give time for the community to review the published applications of new gTLDs and the implications of the batching method. In a letter sent to ICANN, Hnarakis enumerated some implications such as the possibility of putting the most contentious strings in the first batch, as the gap of the processing time between the first batch and the last batch might take 2 years or more and the possibility for brand owners to be forced to create second level registrations until their own TLD becomes operational. He encouraged ICANN to accept suggestions from the community to improve the batching process. In an interview with Domain Incite, Hnarakis said, "There seems to be a broad sentiment that this isn’t the best method, but people don’t want to rock the boat because they don’t want to see any further delay. I don’t care if there’s any further delay, I just want to make sure… it’s done in a way that’s fair for all parties, brand holders particularly and that ICANN comes out of it with some credibility."

NetNames Opposition

Stephane Van Gelder, General Manager of NetNames, a subsidiary of Group NBT, also requested ICANN to delay digital archery until a new solution for the evaluation process could be determined. In a letter to ICANN, he described digital archery as a "contentious system that seem[ed] to favour those with in-depth knowledge of the second-hand domain industry and more specifically, its drop-catching techniques." He believed that the method had been approved without formal community input.

Antony Van Couvering (TLDH) Criticism

Antony Van Couvering, CEO of Top Level Domain Holdings strongly criticized ICANN's digital archery, describing the system as "deeply flawed," and encouraged ICANN to scrap its implementation. Van Couvering said that the [Batching|batching]] system artificially creates losers and winners, that it is a game of chance rather than skill, and is unfair to poorer applicants, certain regions and non-generic applicants. He also presented some evidence of errors on the TLD Application System (TAS): after conducting tests using the digital archery test process, Van Couvering theorize that the system's software was recording a "wrong seconds value, but with the right milliseconds value" when an applicant clicked the button prior to the target time. He encouraged ICANN to investigate the issue.

Digital Archery Service Providers

The following companies offer digital archery assistance services:

• Pool.com's Digital Archery Engine, the fee will be $25,000 if the company is able to secure a spot in the first batch, $10,000 for spot in the second batch, and no fee if the spot secured for a client falls into batch 3 or lower.
• Digital Archery Experts's Batch One Bullseye offering, the company is accepting clients on a first come, first served basis and will only charge if a spot in batch one is secured. The company partnered with Sedari, a gTLD business management firm, to offer the Batch One Bullseye digital archery service to the company's clients.
• Key-Systems is offering its digital archery service to new gTLD applicants for €15,000 ($18,800) through its wholly-owned subsidiary KSRegistry. According to Alexander Siffrin, CEO of the company, his team was able "hit the specified time exactly in the testing system – matching even the millisecond." The company will only charge for applications that make it into the first batch of ICANN's initial evaluation process.
• Knipp Medien und Kommunikation GmbH's First Come, First Served service is available for a $7,500 "early bird" promotion fee for new gTLD applicants who sign up on or before June 20, 2012. The regular service fee after June 20 is $12,500. Applicants will only pay for the service fee if they get a slot in the first batch of ICANN's initial evaluation process.