Back In December 2013, I placed some paid pre-orders for some .Horse domain names and wrote a blog post about it.
At the time no other registrar
Since then other than getting the receipt for the pre-order, I haven’t heard a thing about the registrations, until today
I just received this email from Minds +Machines and it will apply to anyone who placed a paid pre-order on MindsandMachines.com for a .Horse, .Casa or .Cooking new gTLD domain name.
Bottom line any paid pre-orders are being submitted as a Landrush application which means that the domain will be awarded to the one who placed the pre-order unless someone else places a Landrush application for the same domain, in which case the domain will go to auction.
So basically no advantage to those who submitted a paid pre-order early.
Here is the notice:
“”Dear Registrant,
If you are receiving this email, you reserved a domain name in .casa, .horse, or .cooking during our Priority Reservation Phase.
For technical reasons ICANN, which regulates the domain name space, disallowed the Priority Reservation program after you made your reservation. But for the vast majority of you, there won’t be any disruption. We agreed with them to put your name(s) into our Landrush phase instead. There is no additional charge and you do not need to do anything. But there’s a chance that someone might apply for the same name as you and, if that happens, there will be some additional steps.
What is Landrush and what happens during this phase?
Landrush is the time during which domain names are available for registration before the top-level domain is open to general, first-come first-served registration. Your Priority Reservation names will be entered into the Landrush phase. If your Landrush application is the only one for the requested domain, then you will be notified at the end of the Landrush phase that your Landrush application is now a registration, and no further action or payment on your part will be required. In the case of duplicate applications, you will be invited to an online auction (we’ll send you all the details if that happens). If you do not receive the domain for any reason (for instance, if you don’t want to go to an auction, or if you do go to auction and lose), Minds + Machines Registrar will issue you refund. If for any reason you want a refund immediately, just ask us and we will be happy to refund you (see below for details).
What does this mean for you?
Your domain name has been changed from a Priority Reservation to a Landrush application. If someone else has applied for the same domain name as you, then you may either ask for refund or enter into an auction. If no one else has applied for the same name as you, then your Landrush application will turn into a registration during the allocation time period, in August, and will then go live in September.
We do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you and welcome any questions or concerns you may have. Please feel free to email them to [email protected].””
