Donuts has withdrawn its 1st new gTLD of the 307 applications it filed with ICANN.
This certainly could be the result of a private auction which are underway this week.
There is only one other applicant for the new gTLD .Vote and that company application, under the name of Monolith Registry LLC was filed by Afilias which operates the .info TLD.
Donuts application which is now withdrawn is under the corporate name Double Falls, LLC which had a prioritization number of 663.
Now that Donuts application for .Vote has been withdrawn the only other applicant for the new gTLD extension is Afilias.
The withdrawn application becomes the 72nd new gTLD application to have been withdrawn with ICANN.
Makes you wonder what some of these registries plans are… like with Afilias, what the heck are they going to do with .vote?
This was the likely outcome. Monolith Registry applied vor .VOTE and .VOTO (Spanish/Italian/Portuguese for Vote) and was the only applicant for .VOTO, so also getting .VOTE was essential to overcome confusion as it’s the same word in different languages. It seems they are a JV with Afilias, not a 100% Afilias endeavor.
Thanks for the info