Last Updated: August 2026
The purpose of an ICANN New gTLD Auction is to resolve contention among applicants in a contention set for a new gTLD.
For applications in direct contention, the auction determines which application will be eligible to proceed to applicant and application evaluation. For indirect contention sets, a single auction may result in more than one application proceeding where the applications are not in direct contention with one another.
For more information, see:
- String Contention and Its Resolution Topic Overview
- 5.2 String Contention and Contention Resolution Procedures of the Applicant Guidebook
- 5.6 ICANN New gTLD Auction of the Applicant Guidebook