ICANN announced the cancellation of an auction for new generic top-level domains .KID and .KIDS. As it was reported previously, the auction was supposed to take place on January 25th next year. Domains .KID and .KIDS were deemed too similar and this is the reason why only one of them will be added to the root zone, the one, which gets the highest bid on the auction. Google applied for .KID, while Amazon and DotKids Foundation claim .KIDS.
The chances of the latter in the fight with Internet giants were from the beginning considered insignificant. However, DotKids Foundation demanded the previously made decision of ICANN under the Community Priority Evaluation to be reversed. Community Priority Evaluation is meant to estimate the public significance of a particular domain and establish whether the applicant is capable of expressing public interest in the role of the domain administrator. In case of positive decision, the domain is transferred to the applicant without an auction. However, ICANN, obviously, didn’t consider a little-known DotKids Foundation to be the spokesperson of the children of the world.
And now DotKids Foundation insists on this decision to be reconsidered. The process can take from 30 to 90 days. Observers doubt that this step will help DotKids Foundation reach its goal. It’s very rare that ICANN would change its decision under the Community Priority Evaluation. This is why it will probably just result in the postponement of the auction, points out the Domain Incite.
