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New TLDs could come quicker than expected

Kevin Murphy, February 23, 2011, 14:28:25 (UTC), Domain Registries

New top-level domains may arrive a month earlier than previously projected, after ICANN revealed it is considering reducing the first-round application window to 60 days.
That’s one of a number of suggested changes to the new TLDs program that appear in documents published Monday (more on this later).
In the summary and analysis of public comments on November’s proposed final Applicant Guidebook, ICANN staff write (with my emphasis):

A set of commenters suggested that the application submission period should be 30 days. ICANN has not established the length of this period; however, it is expected that it the necessary steps leading up to and including the submission of an application will take some time to complete. ICANN’s intention is to ensure that the time period is sufficient for applicants to provide appropriate attention to these steps. The application period will be at least 60 days and no longer than 90 days.

A 60-day window would reduce the minimum estimated period between ICANN approving the guidebook and the first new TLDs going live from 15 months to 14 months.
ICANN currently expects to launch a four-month communication period after the Guidebook is approved, followed by the application window.
The most-straightforward TLDs could be approved in as little as eight months after applications close, and going through IANA to get into the root could take as little as 10 days.
If the Guidebook gets the nod in April, we could be looking at TLDs live by July 2012, with sunrise periods starting not too long thereafter, but that’s still the most optimistic outcome for applicants.

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Comments (12)

  1. MS says:
    February 23, 2011 at 4:02 pm

    ICANN Needs to truly consider who is being effected most by the actions or lack of.
    Matters related to existing IDN gTLD’s which are expected years ago by many users globally and are a real necessity to those who don’t consider English they’re first language or speak no English at all and where until today have no idn.idn in the various gTLD’s available in ASCII.
    If anyone is in doubt rather this need is existing, all you need to do is paste קום or ком (com in Hebrew and Russian) and/or нет , נט (net in Russian and Hebrew) where you will find many sites with the idn.idn domain in the title tag where in fact the domain is not an IDN and is a transliteration of what the site’s name would sound in the native language.

    Reply
  2. Winners and losers in the next Applicant Guidebook | DomainIncite.com - Domain Name News & Opinion says:
    February 23, 2011 at 4:09 pm

    […] New TLDs could come quicker than expected […]

    Reply
  3. Jothan Frakes says:
    February 23, 2011 at 7:20 pm

    The situation still exists whereby three character strings that are on the ISO3166 list, like .GEO, and .MAC would be blocked because they are the short forms of Georgia (the Country, not the US State) and Macau respectfully.
    Apple Computer would have to get an approval from the Chinese Government for a .MAC.
    Ironically, .COM would have been blocked by that rule.

    Reply
    • gpmgroup says:
      February 24, 2011 at 12:09 pm

      Caterpillar and HP are not so fortunate as to be able to ask the Chinese Government for a letter of approval.

      Reply
      • Jothan Frakes says:
        February 24, 2011 at 9:56 pm

        I have had a lot of questions as to what I meant on .COM being blocked by Komoros… their three letter designation is COM.
        @GPM
        Amadieu from .CAT presented at the ICANNStudienkreis in Barcelona last year that Caterpillar was approached with the opportunity to object/comment when .CAT was introduced, and they had no objections at the time.
        HP has a two character issue, like many. there’s noting in the way of a .hewlettpackard, but otherwise creativity might push it forward….
        HP has now 3 CLASS A ranges of IPv4 space they could ‘horse trade’ back to IANA for an exception on the two character list (hypothetically, of course).
        But I find it unlikely, as once that crack in the policy might occur, in floods the thuundering herd of two char requsts from brands that want them theirs.

        Reply
        • MS says:
          February 25, 2011 at 8:06 pm

          Hi Jothan, Thanks for the clarification, i think if that would have been the case, then why not get Netherlands to claim .net rights or the town of Orgeev .org rights.
          Assuming that the appr. 600,000 residents of the Comoros Islands would like to get a gTLD in Cyrillic then like .Paris and .Berlin they likely can get .Comoros (and/or .Коморос in Cyrillic), Even that they officially speak Comorian and some also use Arabic and French), And as they now have the ccTLD .km, they can also get that in Cyrillic i would assume (.км)
          When you have 90+ Million .com domains globally, it’s not really a matter of choice for neither Comoros,Frankfurt of verisign, it’s a matter of preventing confusion which only will be prevented if all ‘verisions’ (.com/.ком and any others that are likely to cause confusion) are under control of one registrant.
          I found 28 single monthly searches for Коморос in Yandex, For indication purposes, 31,000 for брюссель (Brussels) and 600,000 for париж (Paris) so i would not bet on them applying for anything really other then the existing ASCII .km which brings 3,450 results in google for: site:.km
          Yandex stats tool: wordstat.yandex.ru .

          Reply
          • Jothan Frakes says:
            February 27, 2011 at 7:01 pm

            @MS good points. The real thing to consider is that the folks in charge get that it is not possible to pull things back once they’re out. It would be like trying to bottle a fart. So the stuff that’s out is out.
            I think this plays a role in why there is close attention to the restrictions or objection capabilities that have taken in excess of a decade to evolve.
            My point of comment was simply to say that there are a lot of areas of overlap with the ISO3166 and commercial interests.
            I appreciate the expansion on the point, and it certainly appears that you understand a myriad of issues that need careful consideration as the >English or !English languages are considered.
            -Jothan

  4. New TLDs could come quicker than expected - IDN Forums - Internationalised Domain Names says:
    February 24, 2011 at 12:22 pm

    […] New TLDs could come quicker than expected In addition to the article, this comment from Jothan Frakes: The situation still exists whereby three character strings that are on the ISO3166 list, like .GEO, and .MAC would be blocked because they are the short forms of Georgia (the Country, not the US State) and Macau respectfully. Apple Computer would have to get an approval from the Chinese Government for a .MAC. Ironically, .COM would have been blocked by that rule. http://domainincite.com/new-tlds-cou…/#comment-4307 […]

    Reply
  5. Drewbert says:
    February 24, 2011 at 9:13 pm

    This is going to be like a landrush. A 24 hour application window would suffice.

    Reply
  6. Norman says:
    February 24, 2011 at 11:21 pm

    I’ll be rushing for upcycled dot whatever.

    Reply
  7. isis says:
    February 25, 2011 at 7:26 pm

    “If the guidebook gets the nod in April” . . . Are you delusional?

    Reply

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