Applications won’t be accepted until early 2010.
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has pushed back its estimated time frame to start accepting applications for new top level domains. ICANN had hoped to accept applications by December 2009, but now admits the process won’t start until first quarter of 2010.
ICANN hopes to address overarching concerns about new TLDs at its next meeting in Sydney and then publish the third draft of the applicant guidebook in September with a comment period ending in October:
ICANN will not be producing a third version of the Applicant Guidebook for new generic top-level domains before its upcoming June meeting in Sydney, Australia. This is because the discussion of overarching issues will continue through the meeting and beyond (as was expected). Publication of a new Guidebook version without addressing these issues might signal that they are not considered important.
It seems that the Sydney meeting will be an important one for all internet constituents to attend.
ICANN was heavily criticized for publishing the second draft of the guidebook without first addressing four so-called threshold issues, such as protection of trademark owners.
David J Castello says
Must be the “public’s overwhelming demand” for them 🙂
M. Menius says
ICANN are eager to make up for the 4+ million dollars they squandered on their “investments” (made with your money).
The tld orgy should have no target date. Too many complex, unresolved problems looming. Bizarre how married they are to this plan. Something suspicious about their incessant pushing.
New tld’s don’t have to happen at all. And particularly in a rushed fashion.
What likely happened is that certain premature promises were made by ICANN to garner initial supporters, and now they have put themselves in a double bind because the entire concept is riddled with serious problems and has been met with huge opposition.