ICANN org consented to 11 of the 17 proposed assignments requested by UNR. UNR and the proposed successor operators have addressed ICANN org’s concerns, in part through substantial changes to their own transaction documents. After the parties made significant changes, 11 transactions have been approved by the ICANN.
XYZ and Dot Hip Hop
ICANN stated that XYZ became the new operator of .audio, .christmas, .diet, .flowers, .game, .guitars, .hosting, .lol, .mom and .pics. The company also partnered with UNR and bought out UNR’s interest in .car, .cars, and .auto in 2020. A new company, Dot Hip Hop also acquired .hiphop tld. ICANN stated,
« ICANN org uncovered issues and inconsistencies during its diligence and raised concerns in what had been communicated about the transactions. Among those issues were assertions regarding ownership of the gTLDs and the opportunity to attain rights outside of the Domain Name System. This raised concerns because ICANN org was being asked to approve transactions that included not only the transfer of gTLD operations set out in the relevant registry agreements, but also included references and/or implications of the transfer of ownership rights in the gTLDs.
To be clear, the registry agreements do not grant any property ownership rights in the gTLD or the letters, words, symbols, or other characters making up the gTLD string. In addition, ICANN’s consent to any assignment of the registry agreement does not convey any rights to the letters, words, or symbols making up the TLD string for use outside the Domain Name System. »