Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. Early Warning Report is designed specifically to align with the ICANN Applicant Guidebook and ICANN's stated mission of reducing contention. ICANN's restrictions apply to the sharing of applicant information and private resolution of contention sets after Reveal Day. Early Warning Report operates before that threshold - outside the formal application process and before Reveal Day. We anticipate being able to facilitate contention avoidance services during the window between the application closing date and Reveal Day, in alignment with the guidebook. Our goal is to work within ICANN's structure, not around it.

No - and any service that claims otherwise isn't being straight with you. Complete visibility would require every potential applicant to participate in the system, which we can't guarantee. What we can tell you is that even partial participation gives you meaningful information and much more information than you would otherwise have. Applicants who participate will know more, have more options, and be in a better position to act strategically before those options disappear. That advantage exists regardless of how many others participate. Applying for a new gTLD is an expensive proposition. The question is whether you want to have more information or no information when making that decision.

Withholding strings from your own submission is counterproductive and only deprives you of data points that could benefit you. There's no strategic upside to doing so.

Participation in the String Interest Report is $1,000 per string. Participation in the Contention Avoidance Report is $3,000 per string. Participants who purchase the String Interest Report for a given string can upgrade to the Contention Avoidance Report for an additional $2,000 per string.

Applicants who successfully avoid contention before Reveal Day can expect to go to market with their new gTLD 18 to 24 months earlier than those who go through ICANN's auction process. That's a significant head start on launching a registry, building registrar relationships, and establishing your presence in the market - on top of avoiding the financial exposure that comes with contention.

There's no requirement to participate. But applicants who don't will have less information than those who do - and in a process where the cost of contention starts at $79,450 and goes up from there, that information gap has real financial consequences. Participation is, at minimum, a low-cost way to reduce uncertainty around a high-stakes decision.

Yes. Submitted strings are not accessible to Early Warning Report principals or staff - only to a trusted contracted system administrator. This structure is intentional: it protects participant confidentiality and ensures the platform cannot be used to game the process.

Early Warning Report does not address similar strings. ICANN's process for similarity determination is too unpredictable and the goal of Early Warning Report is to provide more information and certainty - not less.

If the String Interest Service does not reach a threshold of 200 submitted strings, all fees will be refunded in full.

Early Warning Report was founded by Ray King and Marc Trachtenberg, two people with deep roots in the domain name industry who have been through this process before - and built something specifically because they saw what was coming in this round.

Ray is the CEO of Top Level Design, which acquired multiple new gTLDs in the first round and subsequently sold them, and the CEO of Porkbun, one of the largest domain registrars in the world with over 500,000 active customers and 3 million domains under management. He has operated on both sides of the registry and registrar equation and understands what's at stake for applicants in this round.

Marc is an attorney who has specialized in internet and domain name matters for over 20 years. He has represented registries, registrars, search engines, eCommerce platforms, social media companies, and other online intermediaries before ICANN and elsewhere. He serves as counsel to the Brand Registry Group, the leading trade association for owners of .Brand TLDs, participated in the policy development process for the first round of new gTLDs, assisted with dozens of applications in that round, and was actively involved in the policy development process for this upcoming round. He has also advised clients on numerous TLD acquisitions on both the buy and sell side.