[ALAC] ICANN News Alert -- New gTLD Batching Announcement

[Avri Doria]

On 7 Jun 2012, at 06:51, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond wrote:

> Already several firms run by close ICANN insiders are proposing a paying
> service to "win" the Digital Archery using their automation service
> which they claim will ensure their client's applications are considered
> first.


http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/tas/batching/details-06jun12-en.pdf

says: 

"
ICANN reserves the right to delay an application to the last batch or to reject
an application entirely if ICANN reasonably determines that the applicant
abused the batching system or intentionally interfered with the performance of
the system or any other applicant's use of the system.
"

Wouldn't using one of these service be considered abuse of the system?
It is certainly a gaming of the system.

Also, if you were an applicant would you give your TAS account and password to pool.com? But that is another matter.

Does anyone actually know what techniques people like pool.com use to game ICANN system?

Also given the round robin plan:

"
Then, the best timestamp score from each region is selected, one region at
a time, on a rotating basis.
"

Doesn't this mean that for any region that has fewer than 100 applications, all of that regions applications will be in the first batch (as long as they aren't ASP applications, though that is not specifically spelled out in the rules).  I expect that this may be good for places like Africa and Latin America as I don't expect them to match the application fervor of the US.

As for it being a game of chance not skill.  I think that the fact that people can practice and figure out the best strategy for their location, does allow for skill to affect one's chances.  

avri