Even though consideration of applications for the new top-level domains is officially over, the fate of many of them (especially those that are considered most promising) still remains a subject of heated debate and litigation. Domain .HOTEL is without a question an attractive domain. Such well-known players of the domain market Donuts, Minds + Machines, Famous Four and Radix claimed it. However, HOTEL Top-Level-Domain S.a.r.l. became its operator registrar, which was surprising for everyone. The company managed to prove public significance of the domain and that it can advocate precisely public interests better than any other company during Community Priority Evaluation.
Applicants that failed decided not to put up with the situation. They filed a Document Information Disclosure Policy Request (DIDP) with Corporation ICANN. In particular, they wanted to know the names of the experts who participated in decision-making process and also documents that proved communications between experts, HOTEL Top-Level-Domain S.a.r.l. and ICANN.
As it became known yesterday, the request was rejected. ICANN explained that experts represented Economist Intelligence Unit – analytical division of The Economist Group, publisher of the authoritative journal The Economist. Thus, they are the third-party and ICANN has no right to disclose their personalities and details of communication with them. However, observers believe that it is too soon to draw the line in this story.
