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One of the challenges facing ICANN since announcing the New gTLD program in 2008 is a reliable forecast for the demand for New gTLDs. In addition to helping satisfy the need to back up the economic assessment study, a reliable forecast is instrumental in determining the scope of both the administrative and technical infrastructure required.

ICANN is now asking for public comment on a recent proposal to seek expressions of interest from parties interesting in applying for new gTLDs. The public comment period will extend until 11 December 2009., Interested parties are encouraged to offer support, provide constructive criticism, or put forward suggestions as to the content and requirements of an EOI.

Some suggestions which have been proposed so far are:

• The EOI should include, at a minimum, the name string applied for, name of the applying entity and contact information.
• An accompanying fee of $50,000 to be later credited to the full application fee ($185,000). The idea of the fee is to help ensure interest from only serious participants.
• Stipulation that only EOI applicants be allowed to participate in the first round of applications.

ICANN staff are expected to review the comments and provide a plan for board consideration at ICANN’s next board meeting 9 December 2009.

Details on how to provide your comment, and guidelines for input into the EOI, can be viewed by clicking here.

The recent ICANN meeting in Seoul South Korea resulted a great deal of information about IDN-ccTLDs and New gTLDs.

IDN-ccTLDs are internationalized domain names (IDN) for country-code top level domain names (ccTLDs) that use non-Latin language scripts to represent the name of the country (e.g. 中 国 in addition to .cn for China). The ICANN Board approved the IDN-ccTLD fast track process to move ahead as planned. Beginning 16 November 2009, countries can apply for an IDN that is a meaningful representation of the country’s name in its native script language. The applications will go through a detailed review and approval process, and there is a possibility of some IDNs being created late next year. Whether that could happen in time to allow a formal launch before 2011 is unknown at this time.

As for as New gTLDs, a definitive time-line for implementation of the initiative no longer exists. De-emphasizing the implementation date along with discussions at the meeting around the rights protection measures appears to be a positive signal to corporations and other trademark holders that there is greater interest in getting the process right, rather than just launching new gTLDs. There are two main right protection initiatives that are being worked in tandem. One is an IP clearinghouse, a proposed central database for trademarks, and the other is a uniform rapid suspension (URS) procedure. The URS is intended to complement current UDRP processes by reducing the cost and complexity of actions by legitimate rights holders against fairly obvious intentional infringement.

Previously there were estimates of 300 or more new TLDs potentially being approved for introduction with each round of submissions. However a proposal to introduce DNSSEC implementation into the approval process comes with a request from some in the technical community to limit the rate at which new top level names (both gTLDs and ccTLDs) are added per year ( e.g. to 100 or so) to avoid overloading the business processes for changing root zone records and the network or computer resources ahead of capacity upgrades.

The 3rd revision of the applicant guidebook has been made available for viewing and comment on ICANN’s website and the comment period extends through 22 November 2009. Both the IP clearinghouse and URS proposals are posted separately, and comments are being taken on those documents as well.

Set out below are a number of the key items noted in the ICANN Board meeting minutes with additional commentary for clarity:

ccTLD-IDNS

• Applications from countries will be accepted starting 16 November 2009
• Applicable to only established countries or territories at this time having script languages in one of the currently approved ISO languages.
• Once the IDN-ccTLD name is agreed, a country still needs to follow the standard IANA processes for selecting the manager of that IDN-ccTLD registry.
• It’s possible some ccTLD IDNs may be added to the root zone late in 2010 at which time a sunrise process could be announced by each ccTLD registry.
• Currently accepted launch periods and resolution procedures will be applicable for the new IDN-ccTLDs.

New gTLDs

• No estimated timeframe available for accepting proposals.
• Work remains on agreement and approval of rights protection measures.
• Introduction of New gTLDs may be limited to a maximum per year initially (could be as low as 100).
• Participating in the first round of New gTLDs may require submission of an expression of interest to allow ICANN to get a better estimate on demand and identify potential difficult cases so that any procedures can be modified prior to launching the formal application process.
• Public comment period extends through 22 November 2009.