ICANN's 37th international meeting recently concluded in Nairobi, Kenya and there were several developments that will impact the roll out of new gTLDs.  Taken as a whole, the package of resolutions passed by the ICANN Board indicate that they are looking forward to wrapping up the application development process.  Although there is still important work to be done, it appears the Board and ICANN staff are working  towards opening the application process in early 2011.

The following new gTLD related issues were addressed by the ICANN Board:

Expressions of Interest (EOI)

During the ICANN meeting in Seoul, the Board directed the ICANN staff to explore the possibility of launching an Expressions of Interest process that would collect key information regarding the number and types of strings that applicants might pursue.  This information would then be used to make further refinements to the process and allow staff to prepare for a more defined number applications.

The EOI was subject to public comments periods, in person consultations, and lengthy deliberations by the Board.  In the end, the Board decided to forgo the EOI and instead instructed the staff to focus their efforts in resolving the remaining outstanding issues and publish a 4th, and near final version of the Draft Applicant Guidebook (DAG4) prior to the next ICANN meeting which will take place June 20-25 in Brussels, Belgium

On the decision to forgo the EOI, Peter Dengate Thrush, ICANN's Chairman of the Board: "Many people have been waiting a very long time for program implementation, and we are now so close to launching the new gTLD process that we simply thought it better to move ahead as quickly as possible without adding the EOI element."

Vertical Integration

Another major outstanding issue impacted the potential corporate structures for new gTLD applicants.  A healthy debate, including rounds of public comment, input from economists,  and several in-person consultations had been  underway for several months.  This issue concerns potential registry applicants who wish to act as their own registrar in the new gTLD round and act as a distributor to enable Registrants to register domain names directly.  This would allow them to ‘vertically integrate’ and not require them to use the ICANN accredited Registrar network to distribute their domain names.   In Nairobi, the Board passed a resolution that calls for "strict separation of entities offering registry services and those acting as registrars.  No co-ownership will be allowed." 

While this may seem to be the end of the issue, the Generic Names Supporting Organizations (GNSO), a key policymaking body of ICANN, is currently in the midst of a Policy Development Process (PDP) which is examining this issue.  The Board passed resolution also states that if there is a consensus recommendation that comes from the GNSO PDP "prior to the launch of the new gTLD program", the board may consider it. 

The GNSO is on an accelerated schedule and has a self imposed deadline of June 30 to finish their work on this issue.

Trademark Protection measures

During the ICANN meeting in Nairobi, ICANN Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush observed that "peace has broken out among the warring parties" on the issue of trademark protection measures.  It seems that but for a few tweaks, the community had reached consensus on two key programs - a Trademark Clearinghouse and Uniform Rapid Suspension.  Both of these mechanisms are designed to ensure that trademark owners' rights are protected during the launch of the new gTLD rounds. 

A third proposal for a trademark post delegation dispute resolution procedure (Trademark PDDRP) did elicit widespread critique so it is unclear what the final form for the mechanism will look like.

For all three protection measures, the Board directed staff to gather feedback from the community via the public comment period that is open until April 1 and assimilate that feedback into final proposals for each mechanism to be published in DAG4.   If this has a direct impact to your business model, we encourage you to submit comments into the public comment period.

IDN 3 Character requirement

A vital issue for potential IDN gTLD applications, particularly those in Asian scripts, has been resolved through the collaborative work of staff and the community.  The Board directed staff to finalize this proposal and include in DAG4.

Communications Plan

While awareness of the new gTLD launch is high among western hemisphere ICANN community members, a comprehensive, global communications plan will be needed to ensure that all potential applications are aware of the process and can participate in the initial application round. 

To that end, the Board directed ICANN staff to finalize the communications plan and have it ready for launch as soon as all of the outstanding issues have been resolved to the satisfaction of the ICANN Board of Directors.

In terms of moving the process forward, the ICANN Board took great steps to bring the application development process to a close and move us closer to the opening of the application window.  As mentioned prior, there are several public comment periods open on various aspects of the program which could impact some of these issues, but it is clear that the Board and staff are focused on moving towards opening the application period as quickly as possible.

We expect a lot of activity between now and the next ICANN meeting in June and will be monitoring and providing updates to ensure that you have the latest information available to help you plan your new gTLD strategies.