Think ICANN Will End Up Rolling in New gTLD Cash? Think Again!
By Stéphane Van Gelder on CircleID. January 2014. The first registry contracts have been signed. The first Sunrise priority registration periods have been opened. The new gTLD program is well on the way.
So maybe now, at last, we can start to find out the real costs of opening up the Internet root? And how much revenue doing so has brought ICANN!
Short answer: ICANN has taken in USD 344.958 million from the first round of new gTLD applications. The figure comes from the first of ICANN's quarterly financial statements, covering the three months up until September 30th.
With an initial 1,930 applications received, round one actually netted ICANN $359.994 million. But subsequent reimbursements at percentages of 80, 70 and 35 of the total $185,000 application fee meant that $15.037 million