New gTLD Applicant Guidebook

ICANN made some serious waves during its most recent New gTLD Applicant Update webinar when it announced, among other notices, that it has proposed a series of significant changes to the baseline form of the new gTLD Registry Agreement and would be opening those changes up to Public Comments. The Registry Agreement, or RA, as we’ve discussed previously on this blog, is the contract that all new gTLD applicants must enter into with ICANN in order to operate their new gTLDs.

Without a doubt, the most significant change to the RA is the addition of Specification 11, which outlines new “Public Interest Commitments” (PICs) that applicants will have to uphold. The PICs fall into three sections; the first refers to which registrars a new gTLD Registry Operator may work with. Specifically, it states that the Registry Operator will only use accredited registrars that are party to the newest version of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement. This agreement is still undergoing refinement within the ICANN community, however, and the final version has not yet been published.

The second and third sections of the PICs are commitments that Registry Operators can choose to impose on themselves. Registry Operators have the option to select commitments, business plans or other intentions stated in their new gTLD applications that will become binding aspects of the RA under this specification (Section 2), or they can create new binding commitments and outline them in Section 3.

What has been confusing to many is that the PICs, aside from Section 1, are not technically required. Applicants do not have to add any additional required elements to their RAs. So what would motivate an applicant to add any commitments? Generally speaking, this may be an opportunity for certain applicants that received Early Warnings from ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee or other precautionary feedback from governments or other authorities to ease their concerns. For example, if an applicant applied for a new gTLD with the intention of operating it in a completely open and unrestricted manner, but a government representative or other authority expressed concern that doing so would mislead and ultimately harm consumers, then it may be beneficial for the applicant to add a PIC stating that the gTLD will be operated in a more restrictive manner than originally implied by the application.

Unfortunately, applicants that do wish to add PICs to their Registry Agreements have only a short time to do so – ICANN expects to receive applications for PICs by March 5.

ICANN’s decision to make these changes in what some members of the community have called a unilateral manner also raises some issues. All proposed changes are open for Public Comment until February 26, so you can expect to see some discussion of this issue in that forum.

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. (more...)

ICANN announced today that the new gTLD Public Comment period has been extended until September 26, 2012. This means that members of the public have an additional 45 days to submit comments on new gTLD applications with ICANN’s assurance that those comments will reach new gTLD application evaluators.

So far, 5,636 comments have been submitted in the eight weeks since the Public Comment period opened on June 13, Reveal Day. Over half of the total number of comments were submitted in August alone, meaning that we could see a good deal of activity in the coming 45 days. (more...)

It’s summertime. Your new gTLD applications are in, the jury (or in this case, the ICANN Board) is still out on batching, and Initial Evaluation is just barely underway. We couldn’t blame you if you wanted to kick back, relax, or even sneak off to the beach for a day or two.

Here at FairWinds, we’ll be spending this slight downtime in – where else? – the New gTLD Applicant Guidebook. Most recently, we delved into the pages of the Guidebook to break down the four paths that applications can take once they get through Initial Evaluation. Now, certain applications will inevitably have to go down multiple paths, given their circumstances. But for the sake of this post, we’ll discuss the four separately. (more...)

With the Public Meeting in Prague taking place less than two weeks after ICANN’s big reveal of the 1,930 new gTLD applications, it’s no surprise that certain applications and applicants were discussed openly during various sessions. For example, during the Public Forum on Thursday afternoon, a 14-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl from China (ICANN’s youngest participants ever?) stepped up to the open microphone to express her support for an open, unrestricted .KIDS gTLD. (more...)

We were not expecting very much new gTLD news to come out of ICANN’s public meeting in Costa Rica, which opened this weekend. But it appears that ICANN has settled on a solution – or maybe it’s better just to say “process” – for dealing with new gTLD application batching.

In our post “Working on Batches,” we described how the New gTLD Applicant Guidebook includes a provision that if ICANN receives more than 500 new gTLD applications, then applications will be processed in “batches.” The first batch will consist of 500 applications, and subsequent batches will consist of 400 applications apiece. This batching process is designed to allow the third-party evaluator that ICANN hired to process applications to handle any extended evaluations, string contentions, or any other issues that may arise without overwhelming its capacity. (more...)

The new gTLD application deadline is approaching fast, with just about six weeks left to submit. From our work at FairWinds, we know that many companies are working to finalize their applications, and some are even just getting started now. But everyone, regardless of when they got started, is hurtling toward the April 12 finish line. (more...)

As a gTLD Strategy reader, you know what’s up when it comes to “defensive” new gTLD applications. You know they have nothing to do with protecting your trademarks or brands against cybersquatters – there are plenty of trademark protections and objection procedures laid out in the New gTLD Applicant Guidebook that will prevent opportunists from cybersquatting at the top level, not to mention the fact that the complexity and cost of the application both act as more or less insurmountable obstacles for squatters. (more...)

The process of thinking through, applying for, acquiring, and launching a new gTLD, in a lot of ways, is not so different from a roller coaster. In this case, we’re not referring to the fear or excitement it can induce, or its potential ability to make you want to puke. Instead, we’re talking about speed. (more...)