We analyzed the results of the ORG Spanish IDN Launch. There were many duplicate pre-orders. The results below are for unique domain names. For example, many customers pre-ordered xn--espaol-zwa.org, but it only counts as one domain in our analysis.
Overall Success Rate: 19.39%
Of all the unique pre-order domains, we registered 19.39%. The other pre-order domains could not be registered for various reasons.
DOMAINS WITH MORE THAN ONE PRE-ORDER
We did a further analysis on the most popular domains, those with more than one pre-order.
FAIL: Another Registrar 10.00% FAIL: Policy Error 4.38% FAIL: Country Code 8.75% FAIL: Legacy 65.00% SUCCESS 11.88%
The domains that returned Policy, Country Code, or Legacy errors could not be registered at all. So of the domains that could be registered, we got about half and other registrars got the other half.
Actual Success Rate: 54.29%
DESCRIPTION OF ERRORS
A Policy Error is when the domain is not allowed by the central registry rules. For example, a lot of customers placed pre-orders for xn--ida.org, even though that is a one character IDN, and is not allowed by this central registry. Also, several pre-orders were for domains not in Spanish.
A Country Code failure is caused when the domain was already registered using another country code. There are several other European languages that also have accented characters, and many Spanish words were already registered using these alternative country codes.
A Legacy Failure is caused when the domain was already registered during the first ORG IDN launch in 2001. After this 2001 launch, the ORG central registry stopped allowing IDN registrations for a while to work out technical issues. But registrants were allowed to keep most domains that they had registered.
DOMAINS WITH ONLY ONE PRE-ORDER
We did not do a breakdown of the domains that only received one pre-order. But we suspect that the actual success rate for these domains, taking out the Policy, Country Code, and Legacy errors, would be even higher than 54%.
[This post has been edited by dynadot_staff on Mar 12, 2007 12:37pm.]
We lose two months revenue AND pay full, undiscounted price for these? If they were dot com, I wouldn't worry so much. But these are dot org! Ten months for $7.99?
PIR replied to my e-mail, looks like May 2nd is the actual release day:
As per the .ORG FAQs, http://www.pir.org/GetAOrg/faq-idn.aspx#q8, ORG Spanish script IDNs registered between 03 March and 02 April, 2007 will be placed on Server Hold, Server Update Prohibited, Server Renew Prohibited, Server Transfer Prohibited and Server Delete Prohibited until 02 May, 2007 to allow any Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) disputes to be initiated.
If you have any further questions, we suggest that you contact the registrar.
I do not know why these domains are still under registry lock even though the initial 30-day period has passed. We have contacted the central registry about this. Hopefully they can shed some light on why your domains are still locked.
Knowing a number of the registries it will work as follows
If you registered anytime on the 3/Mar/2007 the embargo will come of at 12.01 on the 3/Apr/2007. For the purpose of the embargo the day is the key not the exact time.
Which makes it 30 days, 4 hours+ since registration. Instead of 30 days (which has passed), are they going to release them after 31 days? I know I have the patience of a four-year-old, but hopefully my math is slightly more mature.
The time when the 30-day registry lock will be removed will vary depending on which day your domain was registered. From our "ORG Spanish IDN Launch" article (http://www.dynadot.com/resource/article/qa.html?aid=13):
"All Spanish ORG IDNs registered in the first month after launch will be registry locked for 30 days after their registration date."
[This post has been edited by dynadot_staff on Apr 2, 2007 3:07pm.]