City votes 4-3 to back company over .vegas Internet suffix

By Dave Toplikar

Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2010 | 4:02 p.m.

After a lengthy hearing, the Las Vegas City Council voted this afternoon to support Dot Vegas Inc. in its effort to become the registry of the .vegas top level domain on the Internet.

The council was stuck on the issue of whether it should also consider that another company, VEGAS.com, had also been working independently to become the registry for the .vegas Internet address suffix, which would be used such as .com, .net or .org. VEGAS.com is owned by The Greenspun Corporation, which also owns the Las Vegas Sun.

However, after hearing the matter for about three hours, the council decided to back Dot Vegas Inc. with its letter of support to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

In turn, if Dot Vegas Inc. gets to be the registry, the city would get 75 cents for each registered name, or 10 percent of the revenue the company generates, whichever is greater.

Voting for the resolution were Mayor Oscar Goodman, Lois Tarkanian, Stavros Anthony and Ricki Barlow, who made the motion to approve.

Voting against were Steve Ross, Mayor Pro Tem Gary Reese and Steve Wolfson.

The main issue was whether the city should or should not treat the matter as a competitive situation and open it up for bids.

During the meeting, Bill Arent, the city's business development director, said he had been approached last June by Dot Vegas Inc., which sought the city's endorsement in its efforts to try to get it approved by ICANN.

Arent said the city had been working in good faith with Dot Vegas and had treated them like it does any other business bringing it an unsolicited proposal — it works exclusively with that business and doesn't seek outside bids.

For that reason, Arent recommended the council support the resolution.

However, several Greenspun Corporation executives, including Brian Greenspun, chairman and chief executive officer; Jim Gibson, a senior vice president; and Howard Lefkowitz, VEGAS.com president and CEO; told the council that VEGAS.com had also been planning to become the registry of the .vegas TDL for several years.

The Greenspun officials explained that they had been planning to eventually get the endorsement of all the local government entities, after ICANN finalized its rules and regulations regarding new generic TDLs.

They said Arent's work with the Dot Vegas Inc. didn't come to public light until about two weeks ago, when the company's request first came up as an agenda item on the council's budget.

The Greenspun officials also said Dot Vegas Inc. was moving too quickly because the ICANN rules and regulations aren't yet finalized.

Elisa Cooper, director of product marketing for MarkMonitor.com, the domain registrar for various large companies, including those such as VEGAS.com, Google.com and eBay.com, also told the council it was moving too quickly on the matter.

Greenspun told the council if it decided to endorse VEGAS.com's proposal instead of Dot Vegas, he could offer the city $1 per registration. Plus, he said, VEGAS.com, which already has 30 million visitors coming to it's Web site each year, is in a good position to market the .vegas TDL and make the city more revenue.

Ross, Reese and Wolfsen, the three councilmen who opposed the matter, each said they didn't have much information until today's meeting and were reluctant to give the city's endorsement to Dot Vegas, when it was clear that Vegas.com was also working along the same lines.

However, Goodman said it would be unfair for the city to put the matter up for bid after working in good faith with Dot Vegas, under the unsolicited proposal guidelines.