ICANN just published a schedule of contention resolution Last Resort Auction and they start on June 4th with a goal of having 20 a month and resolving all of them in 1o months.
This should push many applicants to go into a private auction where the funds go to the other applicants or in the RightoftheDot.com model even to Charities and other non-profits.
There is a schudule of auctions and 10 pages of very firm rules on how the Last Resort Auctions will be conducted.
One of the advantages of private auctions is that parties can agree to terms like amounts of Escrow.com timing of deposits an winning bids.
Those applications in contention can be seen on the ICANN Current Application Status page or the Contention Set Status page as having an application status of In Auction.
Applicants that have received an intent to Auction notification must respond within 28 days of the notification date and submit completed pre-auction materials including the Bidders Agreement and Bidder Forms.
These materials are available within the Auctions resources section of the Auctions landing page on the New gTLD microsite as well as within the web form in the Customer Portal. Auction dates for each contention set will be confirmed at least 21 days prior to the Auction.
Should all contention set members agree that they would like to postpone the auction, ICANN may accommodate such requests per the Auction Rules. To request a schedule postponement, each member of the contention set should make the request using the web form in the Customer Portal when submitting the bidder information. Requests from any fewer than all active members of a contention set will not be honored.
Should all contention set members agree that they would like to advance the schedule, ICANN may be able to accommodate such requests. To request a schedule advancement, each member of the contention set should contact ICANN via the customer portal and submit a request identifying the earliest auction date they can support. Requests from any fewer than all active members of a contention set will not be honored.
The scheduled dates and times of the auctions are as follows:
