Daily Poll: Should ICANN Use New gTLD Money for Marketing?

Kevin Murphy of Domain Incite wrote about the suggestions made by an ICANN working group on how ICANN should spend the $240 million the organization generated from auctions of new gTLD extensions. One idea that seems to be popular with the operators of new gTLD extensions is for ICANN to spend some of the money on marketing activities to educate the general public about the extensions.

Today’s daily poll question is Should ICANN Use New gTLD Money for Marketing? You are invited to vote in the poll below and are welcome to share additional thoughts in the comment section.


Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

7 COMMENTS

  1. They took the money to build a contingency fund, if that’s not required they should either give the payees a refund or use it to benefit the payees.

    Spending it on some random pet projects seems like they’re looking for an excuse to get rid of it before people start asking too many questions.

    The money was raised within the new-GTLD program, so it should stay within that program. ICANN need to accept they also hold some responsibility to ensure the long term success of the program.

  2. .Nope

    .WhyShouldThey?

    Because a bunch of .Crybabies now complain that the program is a .Fail and that people are .Uninterested and .Uneducated?

    .Duh

    .NoSympathy

    What cracks me up is the thought of additional .Suckers registering for a new round

  3. Kamil, that is a good point – there is almost no marketing at lease in the US – unawareness of non .com and the power .com domains have for business are overwhelming to any enduser

  4. As the “marketing guy” for the .CLUB Registry, as well as a board member of The Domain Name Association, I am clearly biased… but… spending funds on marketing does not mean it has to be focused on new gTLD’s per se. The entire industry would benefit from a greater consumer and business awareness of the wide range of opportunities around domain names. For branding and marketing purposes, to a creating valuable asset, to controlling and protecting the integrity of your online presence, and more, domains are important. Most folks take domains for granted and are wholly unaware of the many practical use cases as well as the current choices available to find a meaningful and memorable domain name. Spending some of the auction funds to support a program to help raise such awareness would have the potential to serve the entire community (that generated the funds) in a positive way.

  5. The above suggestions by Jeffrey Sass are spot on. Physical advertisements in major airports would be a preferred ad format because of how these advertisements can present more detailed information than outdoor billboards (which we pass by in a flash) and because of the influence of airport audiences.

    nTLDs and ICANN are greatly helped by Icannwiki.org. Without it, we lose a considerable amount of transparency and essential information. In an industry that is not known for its transparency, the loss of the wiki represents a huge step backwards. It is hoped that ICANN will continue to support this valuable resource.

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