I predict new TLD marketing will start after ICANN’s Singapore meeting this month.
Just about everyone — including me — is horrible at predicting what ICANN will do and when it will do it regarding new top level domain names. The only people who’ve been right are those that said “it’s not going to happen at this meeting”.
That said, I’m going to take another crack at it. Here’s what I predict for this month’s ICANN meeting in Singapore:
ICANN will not have resolved all its differences with GAC. That means it won’t approve a final guidebook.
Instead, as it has hinted, it will approve “the new gTLD program” and consider the applicant guidebook a work in progress.
This half-ass, middle ground “hedge” will allow ICANN to throw the party Peter Dengate Thrush so desperately wants to have in Singapore for new TLDs. But the mood will be somewhat somber. After all, the party celebrates a finish line that wasn’t crossed.
But the big win here will be that this will give ICANN a rationale to start the communications period for new top level domain names. This communications period (really a marketing campaign) is supposed to run for four months prior to new top level domain name applications being accepted.
New TLD proponents have asked if it could run concurrently with guidebook negotiations. In the past they’ve been shot down. But since it’s clear the guidebook will not be a “finished product” perhaps until the first application is accepted, ICANN will now decide it’s OK to start the marketing.
In fact, the May 30 draft of the communications plans states that it won’t start until there is “board approval of the new gTLD program”. (Elsewhere in the document it says it won’t start until the guidebook is approved, but let’s not split hairs.)
So the board will generally approve the program (whatever that means) in Singapore this month and kick of the marketing.
But like last time, I’m not wagering money on any of this.
I find it disturbing that it even enter’s anyone at ICANN’s minds that “oh no we already planned this party so we have to do something this time”. Dude you guys are all millionaires and ICANN has like a bajillion dollars on hand. Take a loss on the party, give out really nice pens or something. They could afford to refund everybody’s plane ticket withou even feeling it if they wanted.
It’s like not canceling your wedding because you already planned the party, yet you know the wedding should be canceled, and you get married, only to regret I painfully and expensively later.
I think that it might be best for ICANN to start with unique City and Corporation names that are a clear cut as to whom they should belong to such as .NYC or .Google , then they should take their time and further study the situation with the top generic keywords such as “ dot realestate “ or “ dot loan “ or any of the other top generic keywords that represent a whole Industry. Giving such keywords to any one company will be unfair to all the other businesses in their corresponding Industries. Allowing such monopolies to take shape in this era of information age which is supposed to be based on fair and equal access to the Internet is a very unwise move and will come back to haunt ICANN for decades to come. In my opinion the top generic keywords should not belong to any one entity, these should be held by a nonprofit organization on behalf of all the people.
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