On Thursday February 26, Bruce Tonkin, CTO of Melbourne IT and Mike Rodenbaugh of Rodenbaugh Law  and former Yahoo! IP attorney, presented a webinar on the changes to the New gTLD process.

As Bruce Tonkin explained, several of the key changes to the current draft gTLD proposal are:

  • Application dates being pushed out to late 2009
    • ICANN will publish all applications after their initial review
  • There will be both an objection and public comment period regarding the applications
  • A refund schedule for withdrawal of applications at various stages
  • Reduction in ongoing annual registration fees from $75,000 US to $25,000 US

Below are links that will enable you to download a PDF of the presentation, or view and listen to a recording of the web session.

Listen to a recording of the presentation.

Additional web sessions will be scheduled to go over news coming out of the March ICANN meeting being held in Mexico City.  Please check back for dates and times.