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by hobs 3696 days ago
I dont know where you heard that, because that is not what the ICANN wiki says: https://icannwiki.com/GTLD_Auctions

"ICANN condones private auctions, as it has encouraged applicants to resolve contention themselves, presumably through buy-outs, partnerships, and auctions. ICANN offers its own auction model as a last resort. All proceeds from gTLDs auctioned off under ICANN's auction model will go to ICANN as "excess funds" that will be redistributed at a later date, in ways that are yet to be determined.[2] "

"The first ICANN auction of last resort was concluded on 4 June 2014 for the string .信息 which had two applicants. The winning price was $600,000 US Dollars. ICANN used their authorized auction services provider Power Auctions, LLC to carry out the auctions."

So looks like you are incorrect.

1 comments

Not really. The citation you mentioned above itself says, under "Private Auctions" --

> The winner will pay the amount of the second-highest bid, split either equally or proportionally between the losing applicants

And if you look at the news articles from the time that .blog was auctioned -- like http://domainincite.com/17991-blog-won-in-eight-figure-aucti... -- Minds + Machines, one of the losing bidders, revealed that they had received 3.4 million dollars after pulling out of the bidding for both `.blog` and `.store`

Also, apart from all the above which is public knowledge and there for you to find on your own, I work for Automattic, and when I checked with those who were involved with the .blog purchase, he confirmed that the winning bid was dispersed to the losing bidders. All in all, not a bad consolation prize.