Donuts plays the genericide card in showdown with Belgian government over .spa

Donuts has asked ICANN to approved its .spa new gTLD application over the objections of the Belgian government, saying the town of Spa no longer has exclusive rights to the string.
As we reported at the weekend, Spa is asking Donuts and rival applicant Asia Spa and Wellness Promotion Council for an up to 25% cut of profits from .spa, as well as the right to help manage the TLD at the registry’s expense.
ASWPC has agreed to these terms, but Donuts has not. It says it offered Spa extra protections for sensitive names, but does not want to hand over any managerial control or profit.
Yesterday, Donuts wrote to ICANN (pdf) to say that “spa” is now so generic that no interest would be served by ICANN enforcing the city’s demands. Here’s the meat of it:

While the City of Spa maintains a historical link to the word “spa”, that word long ago evolved as a globally recognized generic term by people who have never even heard of the city of its origin. The public interest served by making that term available to a global community of spa users far outweighs any risk of confusion with the city of the same name. And for those names that may cause confusion, Donuts has provided a rigorous series of additional protections and controls.
The City of Spa gave the word “spa” to the world many centuries ago, and the world has done a great deal with it. Just as attorneys for the City of Spa don’t fly around the world handing cease-­and-desist notices to resort operators and hot-­tub manufacturers, we do not believe it is appropriate for them to overrun ICANN procedure to try to exert control over how that term is used in the Internet’s global addressing system.

I’m going to raise my hand to say that I’d never heard of Spa before this particular controversy arose, and I expect that goes for most of the people reading this article. Donuts surely has a point.
But that’s not to say Spa doesn’t have a point too. There are plenty of governments that managed to squeeze concessions out of applicants for gTLDs matching place names in their territories, with little complaint from applicants; it’s just that the line was drawn at capital cities, something which Spa is not.
Donuts urges ICANN to give no weight to the Spa-ASWPC deal and to move both applications forward to the next stage of the process — contention resolution.
We may see some progress at the ICANN meeting in Singapore next week, when ICANN will surely press the Governmental Advisory Committee for further advice on this string.

ICANN puts .islam and other gTLD bids in limbo

Or should that be Barzakh?
Rather than making the tricky decision on whether to approve .islam and .halal new gTLD applications, ICANN seems to have place both bids into permanent limbo.
It’s also put off calls on applications for .spa, .amazon, .wine and .vin, due to objections from the Governmental Advisory Committee.
On .islam and .halal, ICANN chair Steve Crocker wrote to Turkish applicant Asia Green IT System to say that the New gTLD Program Committee will not address the bids until AGIT has worked out its differences with the Organization for Islamic Cooperation.
He noted that AGIT has expressed a willingness in the past to work with the OIC, but that the OIC has formally decided to object to the two applications. Crocker wrote:

There seems to be a conflict between the commitments made in your letters and the concerns raised in letters to ICANN urging ICANN not to delegate the strings. Given these circumstances, the NGPC will not address the applications further until such time as the noted conflicts have been resolved.

This is not a formal rejection of the applications, but ICANN seems to have placed them in a limbo that will only be resolved when AGIT withdraws from the program or secures OIC support.
There’s also delaying treatment for .wine and .vin, which have become the subject of a raging row between Europe on the one hand and the US, Canada and Australia on the other.
Europe wants these two wine-related gTLDs to be subject to strict rules on who can register domains containing geographic indicators, such as “Champagne”. The others don’t.
ICANN in response has commissioned a third-party study on GIs, which it expects to be able to consider at its Singapore public meeting next month. Again, a decision has been avoided.
The two applicants for .spa don’t have any closure either.
Spa is the name of a town in Belgium, whereas the two applicants — Donuts and Asia Spa and Wellness Promotion Council — intend to use the string in its English dictionary sense.
There was a bit of a scandal during the Buenos Aires meeting last November when it was suggested that Belgium was using its position on the GAC to shake down the applicants for money.
Belgium denied this, saying the city of Spa didn’t stand to gain financially from the deals that it was trying to make with applicants. Some money would go to “the community served by .spa”, Belgium said, without elaboration.
ICANN has now decided to put .spa on hold, but wants to know more about these talks:

ICANN will not enter into registry agreements with applicants for the identified string at this time. The NGPC notes concern about concluding the discussions with the applicants and will request the GAC to (1) provide a timeline for final consideration of the string, and (2) identify the “interested parties” noted in the GAC advice.

Finally, ICANN has yet again delayed making a call on Amazon’s application for .amazon — until at least Singapore — out of an abundance of legal caution.
The GAC recommended that ICANN should reject .amazon because a few Latin American states claim ownership of the string due to it being the same as the Amazon region they share.
Amazon and others claim that it would be in violation of international law that prevents governments interfering with the use of trademarks for the GAC to block .amazon.
ICANN’s NGPC said:

ICANN has commissioned an independent, third-party expert to provide additional analysis on the specific issues of application of law at issue, which may focus on legal norms or treaty conventions relied on by Amazon or governments. The analysis is expected to be completed in time for the ICANN Singapore meeting so that the NGPC can consider it in Singapore.

In my view, the .amazon issue is the one most likely to bring a lawsuit to ICANN’s doorstep, so the organization clearly wants to get its legal position straight before making a call one way or the other.
All these decisions were made on Wednesday. You can read the NGPC’s resolution here and the important details here.

VeriSign’s .net contract renewed

VeriSign has been given the nod to continue to run the .net domain registry after a vote by ICANN’s board of directors today.
The vote was 14-0, with director Bertrand De La Chappelle abstaining without explanation.
The renewal is hardly surprising – nobody thought for a second that VeriSign would fail to retain the contract – but the deal was controversial anyway, due to a Boing-Boing misunderstanding.
The contract still allows VeriSign to carry on raising prices, by up to 10% in any given year, and it still calls for ICANN to receive $0.75 per domain, which currently adds up to over $10 million a year.
The money is still ostensibly earmarked for special projects including extending ICANN’s outreach into developing nations and DNS security, and the resolution passed by the board today says:

ICANN commits to provide annual reporting on the use of these funds from .NET transaction fees.

This is presumably designed to address criticisms that it basically ignored its commitment under the 2006 .net agreement to set up two “special restricted funds” to manage .net cash, as I reported on here.

First post-approval new gTLD bids announced

After ICANN approved its new generic top-level domains program here in Singapore on Monday, many people I spoke to predicted a new “quiet period” for gTLD application announcements.
There’s a feeling among some that there’s little to be gained now from revealing what gTLD you plan to apply for, particularly if you’re a smaller player that could easily be out-bid by a larger, later applicant.
Nevertheless, today we have the news that GJB Partners plans to apply for .jewelers, one of the narrowest niche gTLDs to be announced to date.
GJB’s managing partner is George Bundy, CEO of .fm and .am registry BRS Media, which also plans to apply for .radio.
I imagine the choice of string took some thought – it’s plural rather than singular, US rather than UK English (in which it would be “.jeweller”).
In such cases, you only need to pick one. If this bid is successful, ICANN’s confusing similarity rules will make sure that .jeweller, .jeweler and .jewellers never see the light of day.
Also emerging this week, the city of Tokyo has announced that it will seek a .tokyo delegation, and is calling for expressions of interest.
That news follows the announcement last week of a commercial bidder for the .okinawa and .ryukyu geo-TLDs, to represent the Japanese region of Okinawa.

Infographic — the approved new gTLDs timeline

ICANN’s board of directors today approved this timetable for the first round of new top-level domain applications.
Also available in PDF format here.

(click to enlarge)

New gTLD program approved — full resolution

ICANN’s board of directors has approved its new generic top-level domains program and will start accepting applications from companies in January next year.
The vote this morning at the Raffles City Convention Center in Singapore, was 13 in favor, with George Sadowsky voting against.
Bruce Tonkin of registrar Melbourne IT abstained on conflict-of-interest grounds, and Mike Silber abstained because, while generally in favor of the program, he did not believe it was ready yet.
Here’s the resolution in full. I’ll provide commentary later in the day.

Approval of the New gTLD Program

Whereas, on 28 November 2005, the GNSO Council voted unanimously to initiate a policy development process on the introduction of new gTLDs.
Whereas, the GNSO Committee on the Introduction of New gTLDs addressed a range of difficult technical, operational, legal, economic, and policy questions, and facilitated widespread participation and public comment throughout the policy development process.
Whereas, on 6 September 2007, the GNSO Council approved by a supermajority vote a motion supporting the 19 recommendations, as a whole, as set out in the Final Report of the ICANN Generic Names Supporting Organisation on the Introduction of New Generic Top-Level Domains going forward to the ICANN Board (http://gnso.icann.org/issues/new-gtlds/pdp-dec05-fr-parta-08aug07.htm).
Whereas, the Board instructed staff to review the GNSO recommendations and determine whether they were capable of implementation, and staff engaged international technical, operational and legal expertise to support the implementation of the policy recommendations and developed implementation plans for the GNSO’s policy recommendations.
Whereas, on 26 June 2008, the Board adopted the GNSO policy recommendations for the introduction of new gTLDs and directed staff to further develop and complete its detailed implementation plan, continue communication with the community on such work, and provide the Board with a final version of the implementation proposals for the board and community to approve before the launching of the new gTLD application process (http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/resolutions-26jun08.htm#_Toc76113171).
Whereas, staff has made implementation details publicly available in the form of drafts of the gTLD Applicant Guidebook and supporting materials for public discussion and comment.
Whereas, the first draft of the Applicant Guidebook was published on 23 October 2008 , and the Guidebook has undergone continued substantial revisions based on stakeholder input on multiple drafts.
Whereas, the Board has conducted intensive consultations with the Governmental Advisory Committee (including in Brussels in February 2011, in San Francisco in March 2011, by telephone in May 2011, and in Singapore on 19 June 2011), resulting in substantial agreement on a wide range of issues noted by the GAC, and the Board has directed revisions to the Applicant Guidebook to reflect such agreement.
Whereas, ICANN received letters from the United States Department of Commerce and the European Commission addressing the issue of registry-registrar cross-ownership, and the Board considered the concerns expressed therein. The Board agrees that the potential abuse of significant market power is a serious concern, and discussions with competition authorities will continue.
Whereas, ICANN has consulted with the GAC to find mutually acceptable solutions on areas where the implementation of policy is not consistent with GAC advice, and where necessary has identified its reasons for not incorporating the advice in particular areas, as required by the Bylaws; see .
Whereas, the ICANN community has dedicated countless hours to the review and consideration of numerous implementation issues, by the submission of public comments, participation in working groups, and other consultations.
Whereas, the Board has listened to the input that has been provided by the community, including the supporting organizations and advisory committees, throughout the implementation process.
Whereas, careful analysis of the obligations under the Affirmation of Commitments and the steps taken throughout the implementation process indicates that ICANN has fulfilled the commitments detailed in the Affirmation (http://www.icann.org/en/documents/affirmation-of-commitments-30sep09-en.htm).
Whereas, the Applicant Guidebook posted on 30 May 2011 (http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/comments-7-en.htm) includes updates resulting from public comment and from recent GAC advice.
Whereas, the draft New gTLDs Communications Plan forms the basis of the global outreach and education activities that will be conducted leading up to and during the execution of the program in each of the ICANN geographic regions.
Whereas, the Draft FY12 Operating Plan and Budget (http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-17may11-en.htm) includes a New gTLD Program Launch Scenario, and the Board is prepared to approve the expenditures included in Section 7 of the Draft FY12 Operating Plan and Budget.
Whereas, the Board considers an applicant support program important to ensuring an inclusive and diverse program, and will direct work to implement a model for providing support to potential applicants from developing countries.
Whereas, the Board’s Risk Committee has reviewed a comprehensive risk assessment associated with implementing the New gTLD Program, has reviewed the defined strategies for mitigating the identified risks, and will review contingencies as the program moves toward launch.
Whereas, the Board has reviewed the current status and plans for operational readiness and program management within ICANN.
Resolved (2011.06.20.01), the Board authorizes the President and CEO to implement the new gTLD program which includes the following elements:
1. the 30 May 2011 version of the Applicant Guidebook (http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/comments-7-en.htm), subject to the revisions agreed to with the GAC on 19 June 2011, including: (a) deletion of text in Module 3 concerning GAC advice to remove references indicating that future Early Warnings or Advice must contain particular information or take specified forms; (b) incorporation of text concerning protection for specific requested Red Cross and IOC names for the top level only during the initial application round, until the GNSO and GAC develop policy advice based on the global public interest, and (c) modification of the “loser pays” provision in the URS to apply to complaints involving 15 (instead of 26) or more domain names with the same registrant; the Board authorizes staff to make further updates and changes to the Applicant Guidebook as necessary and appropriate, including as the possible result of new technical standards, reference documents, or policies that might be adopted during the course of the application process, and to prominently publish notice of such changes;
2. the Draft New gTLDs Communications Plan as posted at (http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/new-gtlds-communications-plan-30may11-en.pdf), as may be revised and elaborated as necessary and appropriate;
3. operational readiness activities to enable the opening of the application process;
4. a program to ensure support for applicants from developing countries, with a form, structure and processes to be determined by the Board in consultation with stakeholders including: (a) consideration of the GAC recommendation for a fee waiver corresponding to 76 percent of the $185,000 USD evaluation fee, (b) consideration of recommendations of the ALAC and GNSO as chartering organizations of the Joint Applicant Support (JAS) Working Group, (c) designation of a budget of up to $2 million USD for seed funding, and creating opportunities for other parties to provide matching funds, and (d) the review of additional community feedback, advice from ALAC, and recommendations from the GNSO following their receipt of a Final Report from the JAS Working Group (requested in time to allow staff to develop an implementation plan for the Board’s consideration at its October 2011 meeting in Dakar, Senegal), with the goal of having a sustainable applicant support system in place before the opening of the application window;
5. a process for handling requests for removal of cross-ownership restrictions on operators of existing gTLDs who want to participate in the new gTLD program, based on the “Process for Handling Requests for Removal of Cross-Ownership Restrictions for Existing gTLDs” (http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-02may11-en.htm), as modified in response to comments ; consideration of modification of existing agreements to allow cross-ownership with respect to the operation of existing gTLDs is deferred pending further discussions including with competition authorities;
6. the expenditures related to the New gTLD Program as detailed in section 7 of the Draft FY12 Operating Plan and Budget http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-17may11-en.htm); and
7. the timetable as set forth in the attached graphic , elements of which include the New gTLD application window opening on 12 January 2012 and closing on 12 April 2012, with the New gTLD Communications Plan beginning immediately.
Resolved (2011.06.20.02), the Board and the GAC have completed good faith consultations in a timely and efficient manner under the ICANN Bylaws, Article XI, Section 2.j. As the Board and the GAC were not able to reach a mutually acceptable solution on a few remaining issues, pursuant to ICANN Bylaws, Article XI, Section 2.k, the Board incorporates and adopts as set forth in the document describing the remaining areas of difference between ICANN’s Board and the GAC the reasons why the GAC advice was not followed. The Board’s statement is without prejudice to the rights or obligations of GAC members with regard to public policy issues falling within their responsibilities.
Resolved (2011.06.20.03), the Board wishes to express its deep appreciation to the ICANN community, including the members of the GAC, for the extraordinary work it has invested in crafting the New gTLD Program in furtherance of ICANN’s mission and core values, and counts on the community’s ongoing support in executing and reviewing the program.

ICANN plans retreat to regroup under new chair

ICANN’s board of directors will hold a surprise, unprecedented workshop or retreat next Saturday, to address the “multiple challenges” it faces.
This announcement just appeared on the ICANN web site:

Board Workshop to Prepare for the Future
Given the change in Board leadership and related changes in Board committee assignments and the multiple challenges facing ICANN, the Board will take advantage of the presence of most of the new Board and hold an informal workshop following the close of the ICANN meeting. The primary focus of the workshop will be the challenges facing ICANN and the coordination of Board and management directions.

The workshop is slated for June 25, the day after both the current meeting in Singapore and the chairmanship of Peter Dengate Thrush ends.
Though his replacement has not been named, it’s quite likely that the board already knows who it has selected to fill PDT’s shoes.
The “multiple challenges” ICANN faces could refer to anything from the launch of the new top-level domains program, its increasingly close relationship with its newly empowered Governmental Advisory Committee, or the threat of more US interference with its functions.
Probably all of the above and more.
In addition, the reference to the “coordination of Board and management directions” may well fuel the scurrilous gossip that all is not well between ICANN’s board and its senior staff.
(via @DNSConundrum)

GAC gives ICANN final warning on new TLDs

As ICANN’s 41st meeting begins in Singapore, the Governmental Advisory Committee is sticking to its guns on a number of its outstanding demands on new top-level domains.
GAC chair Heather Dryden said in a Saturday letter to the ICANN board (pdf) that its concerns relating to controversial string objections, trademark protection, and vertical integration have not been satisfactorily addressed.
She also said that the Applicant Guidebook should be amended to protect the trademarks of the Red Cross, Red Crescent and Olympics movements, and that developing countries should get support.

The GAC would advise the Board that these issues involve important public policy objectives and, until resolved, also risk gTLD applications being made that conflict with applicable law.
…
To this end, and notwithstanding the GAC’s wish to avoid any further delay in the new gTLD process, the GAC would advise the Board to ensure that all remaining public policy concerns are properly addressed and adequately respected before the new gTLD application procedure is finalised.

The GAC and board will meet this afternoon in Singapore to discuss these remaining issues.
The ICANN board is due to meet tomorrow morning to consider approving the Applicant Guidebook and the new gTLD program.

Hot topics for ICANN Singapore

ICANN’s 41st public meeting kicks off in Singapore on Monday, and as usual there are a whole array of controversial topics set to be debated.
As is becoming customary, the US government has filed its eleventh-hour saber-rattling surprises, undermining ICANN’s authority before its delegates’ feet have even touched the tarmac.
Here’s a high-level overview of what’s going down.
The new gTLD program
ICANN and the Governmental Advisory Committee are meeting on Sunday to see if they can reach some kind of agreement on the stickiest parts of the Applicant Guidebook.
They will fail to do so, and ICANN’s board will be forced into discussing an unfinished Guidebook, which does not have full GAC backing, during its Monday-morning special meeting.
It’s Peter Dengate Thrush’s final meeting as chairman, and many observers believe he will push through some kind of new gTLDs resolution to act as his “legacy”, as well as to fulfill the promise he made in San Francisco of a big party in Singapore.
My guess is that the resolution will approve the program in general, lay down some kind of timetable for its launch, and acknowledge that the Guidebook needs more work before it is rubber-stamped.
I think it’s likely that the days of seemingly endless cycles of redrafting and comment are over for good, however, which will come as a relief to many.
Developing nations
A big sticking point for the GAC is the price that new gTLD applicants from developing nations will have to pay – it wants eligible, needy applicants to get a 76% discount, from $185,000 to $44,000.
The GAC has called this issue something that needs sorting out “as a matter of urgency”, but ICANN’s policy is currently a flimsy draft in desperate need of work.
The so-called JAS working group, tasked with creating the policy, currently wants governmental entities excluded from the support program, which has made the GAC, predictably, unhappy.
The JAS has proven controversial in other quarters too, particularly the GNSO Council.
Most recently, ICANN director Katim Touray, who’s from Gambia, said the Council had been “rather slow” to approve the JAS’s latest milestone report, which, he said:

might well be construed by many as an effort by the GNSO to scuttle the entire process of seeking ways and means to provide support to needy new gTLD applicants

This irked Council chair Stephane Van Gelder, who rattled off a response pointing out that the GNSO had painstakingly followed its procedures as required under the ICANN bylaws.
Watch out for friction there.
Simply, there’s no way this matter can be put to bed in Singapore, but it will be the topic of intense discussions because the new gTLD program cannot sensibly launch without it.
The IANA contract
The US National Telecommunications and Information Administration wants to beef up the IANA contract to make ICANN more accountable to the NTIA and, implicitly, the GAC.
Basically, IANA is being leveraged as a way to make sure that .porn and .gay (and any other TLD not acceptable to the world’s most miserable regimes) never make it onto the internet.
If at least one person does not stand up during the public forum on Thursday to complain that ICANN is nothing more than a lackey of the United States, I’d be surprised. My money’s on Khaled Fattal.
Vertical integration
The eleventh hour surprise I referred to earlier.
The US Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, informed ICANN this week that its plan to allow gTLD registries such as VeriSign, Neustar and Afilias to own affiliated registrars was “misguided”.
I found the letter (pdf) utterly baffling. It seems to say that the DoJ would not be able to advise ICANN on competition matters, despite the fact that the letter itself contains a whole bunch of such advice.
The letter has basically scuppered VeriSign’s chances of ever buying a registrar, but I don’t think anybody thought that would happen anyway.
Neustar is likely to be the most publicly annoyed by this, given how vocally it has pursued its vertical integration plans, but I expect Afilias and others will be bugged by this development too.
The DoJ’s position is likely to be backed up by Europe, now that the NTIA’s Larry Strickling and European Commissioner Neelie Kroes are BFFs.
Cybercrime
Cybercrime is huge at the moment, what with governments arming themselves with legions of hackers and groups such as LulzSec and Anonymous knocking down sites like dominoes.
The DNS abuse forum during ICANN meetings, slated for Monday, is usually populated by pissed-off cops demanding stricter enforcement of Whois accuracy.
They’ve been getting louder during recent meetings, a trend I expect to continue until somebody listens.
This is known as “engaging”.
Geek stuff
IPv6, DNSSEC and Internationalized Domain Names, in other words. There are sessions on all three of these important topics, but they rarely gather much attention from the policy wonks.
With IPv6 and DNSSEC, we’re basically looking at problems of adoption. With IDNs, there’s impenetrably technical stuff to discuss relating to code tables and variant strings.
The DNSSEC session is usually worth a listen if you’re into that kind of thing.
The board meeting
Unusually, the board’s discussion of the Guidebook has been bounced to Monday, leading to a Friday board meeting with not very much to excite.
VeriSign will get its .net contract renewed, no doubt.
The report from the GAC-board joint working group, which may reveal how the two can work together less painfully in future, also could be interesting.
Anyway…
Enough of this blather, I’ve got a plane to catch.

US resurrects the controversial new TLDs veto

The US government intends to give itself greater oversight powers over ICANN’s new top-level domains program, according to a partial draft of the next IANA contract.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration has proposed what amounts to a Governmental Advisory Committee veto over controversial new TLDs.
The agency last night published a Further Notice Of Inquiry (pdf), which includes a proposed Statement Of Work that would form part of ICANN’s next IANA contract.
The IANA contract, which is up for renewal September 30, gives ICANN many of its key powers over the domain name system’s root database.
The new documents seem to fulfill NTIA assistant secretary Lawrence Strickling’s promise to use the IANA contract “as a vehicle for ensuring more accountability and transparency” at ICANN.
If the new draft provisions are finalized, ICANN would be contractually obliged to hold new gTLD applicants to a higher standard than currently envisaged by the Applicant Guidebook.
The FNOI notes that the US believes (my emphasis):

there is a need to address how all stakeholders, including governments collectively, can operate within the paradigm of a multi-stakeholder environment and be satisfied that their interests are being adequately addressed

The Statement Of Work, under the heading “Responsibility and Respect for Stakeholders” includes new text that addresses this perceived need:

For delegation requests for new generic TLDS (gTLDs), the Contractor [ICANN] shall include documentation to demonstrate how the proposed string has received consensus support from relevant stakeholders and is supported by the global public interest.

The current Applicant Guidebook does not require “consensus support from relevant stakeholders” before a new gTLD is approved.
It gives applicants the opportunity to show support from self-defined communities, and it gives communities the right to object to any application, but it does not require consensus.
Earlier this year, the GAC asked ICANN to beef up the Guidebook to make community support or non-objection a proactive requirement for applicants, but ICANN declined to make the change.
The .xxx Factor
The NTIA’s proposed “respect rule” alludes to the approval of .xxx, which the US and other governments believe was both not in the global public interest and unsupported by the porn industry.
Had the rule been applicable in March, ICANN could very well have found itself in breach of the IANA contract, and the NTIA could have been within its rights to block the TLD.
One way to look at this is as a US government safeguard against ICANN’s board of directors overruling GAC objections to new TLDs in future.
The Guidebook currently gives the GAC the right to object to any application for any reason, such as if it believed a proposed string was not supported by a community it purported to represent.
But the Guidebook, reflecting ICANN’s bylaws, also gives ICANN the ability to disagree with GAC advice (including its new TLD objections) and essentially overrule it.
Under the NTIA’s proposed IANA contract language, if ICANN were to overrule a GAC objection to a controversial application, the NTIA would be able to claim that the gTLD was approved without stakeholder consensus, in violation of the IANA contract.
The new gTLD program would have, in essence, a backdoor GAC veto.
While these changes are being made unilaterally by the US, they are certain to be supported by the European Commission and probably other members of the GAC.
Commissioner Neelie Kroes urged Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke to block or delay .xxx back in April, and subsequently met with Strickling to discuss their mutual opposition to the TLD.
Kroes and Strickling seem to agree agree that ICANN should not have signed the .xxx registry contract over the (weak, non-consensus) objection of the GAC.
The FNOI will shortly open for 45 days of public comment, so we’re not likely to know precisely how this is going to play out in the new IANA contract until August.
ICANN is now in the tricky position of trying to figure out how to incorporate this mess into the Guidebook, which it has indicated it plans to approve just over a week from now.
Singapore is going to be very interesting indeed.