Which will be the first new gTLDs?

Most of the first 100 domains are in non-western scripts. The first in the list, which is still provisional, is 天主教 (Catholic), applied for by the Pontifical Council for Social Communication. Amazon’s application for ストア is second, while the company’s application for .play is 104th, making it one of the first generic words.

Dot-delmonte is 112^th, .samsclub (applied for by Wal-mart) is 124^th and .transformers (applied for by Hasbro) is 131^st.

But Google was not so lucky in the draw. Its company, Charleston Road Registry, occupied some of the bottom spots, including for .mba (1,917^th), .srl (1,914^th), movie (1,908^th), .music (1,907^th) and .corp (1,906^th).

Its application for .google was 1,545^th.

There are multiple applications for many of the generic domains, and these will be reduced by negotiation or auction early next year. It is possible that the position in the draw could affect negotiations between rival applicants.

The draw to assign priority numbers was necessary because technical constraints mean new gTLDs have to be rolled out over time, rather than launched in one go.

The assigned numbers will determine the order in which initial evaluation results are released, and therefore influence the order in which the new gTLDs go live.

The first new gTLDs are expected to launch in the middle of 2013, with the full rollout taking up to two years.

Yesterday’s draw was streamed via video on ICANN’s website. In order to avoid violating California’s anti-lottery laws, ICANN had to obtain a licence for the draw. However, this placed restrictions on the event, such as requiring applicantsto buy tickets, which cost $100 each,in person. For those unable to make the trip,ICANN supplied proxy purchasers at no extra charge.

Among the measures designed to protect IP rights in the new gTLDs is the Trademark Clearinghouse, which will be run by Deloitte.