Issues mostly punted to next year.
There’s an old truism amongst lawyers. Show them a one page contract and they’ll tell you it’s rock solid. Show them a long contract and they can start poking holes in it.
That truism carries over to ICANN’s resolutions on .xxx and new top level domain names today. They’re long and therefore say less than usual. There’s a lot of wiggle room.
.XXX – ICANN “intends” to enter into a contract with ICM Registry to run .xxx. Yesterday I predicted it would be full steam ahead on .xxx, but I was wrong. This looks like a slow crawl to the finish line. Mark my words — if .xxx doesn’t get resolved before the Draft Applicant Guidebook, ICM will lay down the legal hammer on ICANN. And that could delay new TLDs.
New gTLDs – Nothing is really settled. Yes, the Board feels it has addressed the overarching issues. But it will (of course) take into consideration the latest comments. Basically the Board will have a party with the Governmental Advisory Committee in February to hash through some remaining issues.
That’s my take based on reading the resolutions. A lot of people on both sides of each debate will read it differently (glass half full or empty).
joedomains says
seems like it was over optimistic to have the gtld vote at a public transparant ICANN regualr meeting, i think you’ll see a repeat of 2000 when the final vote to launch came at a board retreat or phone meeting.