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ICANN starts the clock on new gTLD GAC advice

Kevin Murphy, April 19, 2013, 08:32:33 (UTC), Domain Policy

The over 500 new gTLD applicants affected by Governmental Advisory Committee advice on their bids have 21 days from today to file their responses officially with ICANN.
But there’s still some confusion about who exactly is expected to file responses, given the extraordinary breadth of the advice contained within the GAC’s Beijing communique.
ICANN today put applicants on formal notice of the publication of the Beijing communique, which actually came out a week ago, and said applicants have until May 10 to respond to the ICANN board.
What it didn’t do is say which applicants are affected. Technically, it could be all of them.
The Beijing communique contains six “safeguards” related to things such as abuse and security, which it said “should apply to all new gTLDs”.
On a more granular level, the GAC has called out, we believe, 517 individual applications that should not be approved or that should not be approved unless they do what the GAC says.
The Beijing communique, it could be argued, throws the whole new gTLD program into disarray, and this is the first chance applicants will get to put their views directly in writing to the ICANN board.

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Comments (7)

  1. Philip Corwin says:

    So this is not really a “public comment”, as the public is not invited to comment, only new gTLD applicants. Would seem to exclude even non-applicant third parties who have filed negative comments or even formal objections against specific strings listed by the GAC.
    Curious approach.

    • Kevin Murphy says:

      It’s not necessarily the same “public comment” that Chehade referred to last week. Could be, or they may have a proper public comment planned too.

  2. Jim Prendergast says:

    Kevin – your point about “The GAC Advices that the following six safeguards apply to all new gTLDs and be subject to contractual oversight” is spot on.
    Does that mean every applicant is now on the hook to respond?
    ICANN really needs to clarify who is expected to respond and who is not.

  3. Tom G says:

    Safeguards = Public Interest Commitments ?

    • Rubens Kuhl says:

      Both PICs and Consensus Policies satisfy the criteria established by the GAC, but Consensus Policies are not under control of the applicant, the board or the GAC.

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