gTLD Strategy

Last week in Toronto during ICANN’s 45th Public Meeting, members of the Governmental Advisory Committee, or GAC, discussed a variety of topics about both new gTLDs and other ICANN policy initiatives. Of those, the topic with arguably the highest stakes for new gTLD applicants was the GAC’s Early Warnings.

To give a quick recap, the New gTLD Applicant Guidebook (section 1.1.2.4) states that the GAC may use Early Warnings to indicate that an application may be seen as potentially sensitive or problematic to governments, or that it may violate national laws. The Early Warning is only a notice, and does not have the power to effectively halt an application like GAC Advice (which, unlike Early Warnings, results from a consensus decision on the part of GAC members) does. Rather, many GAC members expressed the belief that Early Warnings are meant to open a dialogue between applicants and governments (through the relevant GAC representatives) and resolve potentially problematic issues before Advice is necessary.

With that in mind, the GAC published its Toronto Communiqué as the meeting wrapped up late last week. Most importantly, the communiqué stated that the GAC will forward Early Warnings from its members on November 20, 2012. Beginning on that date, applicants who receive Early Warnings will have the opportunity to address the issues enumerated by one or more GAC representatives. In the communiqué, the GAC also stated that individual members are considering a range of issues when it comes to issuing Early Warnings. We have included the list from the communiqué here:

• Consumer protection
• Strings that are linked to regulated market sectors, such as the financial, health and charity sectors
• Competition issues
• Strings that have broad or multiple uses or meanings, and where one entity is seeking exclusive use
• Religious terms where the applicant has no, or limited, support from the relevant religious organizations or the religious community
• Minimizing the need for defensive registrations
• Protection of geographic names
• Intellectual property rights particularly in relation to strings aimed at the distribution of music, video and other digital material
• The relationship between new gTLD applications and all applicable legislation

Also worth noting is that the GAC stated quite plainly that it expects ICANN to oversee and enforce any changes requested. The GAC advised the ICANN Board that such changes should be transformed into contractual requirements, which could raise a host of interesting issues with the Registry Agreement that all new gTLD operators must sign with ICANN.

In addition to Early Warnings, the GAC mentioned that it plans to finalize its Advice following the next Public Meeting in Beijing, China, in April 2013. In its latest proposal paper, which we discussed recently here on the blog, ICANN indicated that it will not delegate the first gTLDs until after that meeting, presumably to leave time for GAC Advice. However, we may not have to wait until April to hear more news from the GAC – the end of the communiqué says that the GAC is considering hosting an intersessional meeting before Beijing “as needed.”

You know that first day at the end of summer, before the temperature drops and the foliage changes, when there’s just something in the air, something different that tells you autumn is just around the corner?

ICANN’s 45th Public Meeting here in Toronto, Canada, has a similar feeling to it – that something is just not quite the same as it was before. For example, senior government officials conducted a high-level meeting in conjunction with an ICANN public meeting for the first time ever today. ICANN’s new President and CEO, Fadi Chehadé, has appointed an array of new staff members and indicated during his remarks at this morning’s welcome ceremony that ICANN is on the precipice of an organizational shift. And hundreds of attendees here in Toronto are participating in an ICANN meeting for the first time. (more...)

The last time we wrote about new gTLD application batching (or metering or sequencing) here on the gTLD Strategy blog was over a month ago, when we discussed some of the comments applicants had submitted to ICANN on the matter. Now, according to an announcement made in the early hours of the morning, ICANN is proposing a new plan for prioritizing applications through the steps leading up to launch. And much to everyone’s surprise, it involves a lottery – and a surprisingly old school lottery, at that. (more...)

This week, a few members of the FairWinds team are off in London to meet with some clients and friends across the pond. Of course, no matter where we are, we’ve always got new gTLDs on the brain. That’s why this picture (below) got us thinking: (more...)

If you’re a new gTLD applicant, there is a chance that at some point over the past few weeks, you received a notice from ICANN informing you that your application had been selected to be part of a Clarifying Questions Pilot program. In an August 9 webinar, ICANN pointed out that although the questions that select applicants receive as part of the Pilot are actual questions based on the evaluators’ review of the application in question, the answers that applicants send in will not be counted toward the ultimate evaluation of their applications. Rather, this Pilot program is designed to help ICANN ensure that it gets the Clarifying Question (CQ) process right by asking the right questions to elicit the proper responses from applicants. (more...)

At this point, we all understand that for new gTLD applicants, new domain extensions do not come cheap, especially considering the $185,000 price tag just to submit an application. But what many have not yet come to terms with is the fact that even if companies did not apply for their own new gTLDs, there will be significant costs associated with the rollout of potentially up to 1,409 unique new extensions over the next few years. (more...)

ICANN has long upheld the stance that its role, though critical to the everyday functions of the Internet as we know it, is very limited. In fact, on the Frequently Asked Questions page of ICANN’s website, it says the following:

“ICANN's role is very limited, and it is not responsible for many issues associated with the Internet, such as financial transactions, Internet content control, spam (unsolicited commercial email), Internet gambling, or data protection and privacy.”

This delineation of what exactly it is that ICANN is responsible for and what it is not was stated again by its interim CEO Akram Atallah in a recent Reuters article about the deluge of public comments ICANN has received over who should operate certain religious gTLDs that were applied for as part of the New gTLD Program, namely .BIBLE, .ISLAM and others. While certain comments implore ICANN to make sure that these names do not fall into the “wrong” hands, Atallah told Reuters, “We don't look into whether the Vatican has the right to the .CATHOLIC name. Hopefully, the process will get to a conclusion that is satisfying to the majority.” (more...)

Some readers may remember hearing about a court ruling from last month that made some waves in the domain name space. The Central District of California District Court ruled that the lawsuit filed by Manwin Licensing, the owner of YouPorn.com against ICM Registry, the operator of the .XXX gTLD, could proceed, indicating that ICANN is subject to U.S. antitrust laws. Many assumed that this ruling would mean that new generic-term gTLDs would be subject to antitrust laws, and therefore would be open to antitrust lawsuits. FairWinds’ Counsel Steve Levy weighs in on this topic in a special post below. (more...)

On Thursday, ICANN will host another one of its New gTLD Program Applicant Update webinars to update applicants on topics “of interest” to them. One of those topics, of course, is the ongoing progress toward adopting a solution to resolve the issue of application batching/metering/sequencing once and for all.

Readers will remember from our earlier post, “Weighing in on Batching,” that FairWinds submitted a proposed solution during ICANN’s recently closed public comment window that followed the accounting principle, First In, First Out, or FIFO. Essentially, our solution relies on natural speed bumps and roadblocks in the new gTLD application evaluation process and puts more control in the hands of new gTLD applicants, rather than in ICANN to establish subjective delays. You can read more about our proposed solution in the post. (more...)