Latest news of the domain name industry

Recent Posts

Next new gTLD round unlikely before 2022

Kevin Murphy, March 13, 2018, 11:17:39 (UTC), Domain Policy

ICANN is unlikely to accept any more new gTLD applications until a full decade has passed since the last round was open.
That’s the conclusion of some ICANN community members working on rules for the next round.
Speaking at ICANN 61 in Puerto Rico this weekend, Jeff Neuman, co-chair of the New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Working group, presented a “best case” timetable for the next round.
The timetable would see the next new gTLD application window opening in the first quarter of 2021, nine years after the 2012 round.
But Neuman acknowledged that the timeline would require all parts of the ICANN community — working groups, GNSO Council, board of directors, staff — to work at their most efficient.
With that in mind, 2021 seems optimistic.
“Even if we hit the 2021 date, that’s still a decade after the launch of the last round, which is crazy,” Neuman said.
Slide
The timetable assumes the GNSO wraps up its policy development a year from now, with the ICANN board approving the policy mid-2019.
It then gives the ICANN staff about six months to publish an updated Applicant Guidebook, and assumes whatever is produced is approved within about six months, after the first pass of public comments.
It’s worth noting that the 2012 round’s AGB hit its first draft in 2008 and went through half a dozen revisions over three years before it was finalized, though one imagines there would be less wheel-reinventing required next time around.
After the board gives the AGB the final nod, the timeline assumes ICANN staff about six months to “operationalize” the program.
But one unidentified ICANN staffer, who said she was “the person that will be ultimately responsible for the implementation” of whatever the GNSO comes up with, said during this weekend’s session that she doubted this was realistic.
She said ICANN the organization would need “at least 12 months” between the ICANN board approving the AGB and the application window opening. That would push the window to late 2021.
The Subsequent Procedures policy work is of course not the only gating factor to the next round.
There’s also a potential bottleneck in work being carried out to review rights protection mechanisms, where fears of filibustering have emerged in an already fractious working group.
All things considered, I wouldn’t place any bets on an application window opening as early as 2021.

Tagged: , , ,

Comments (3)

  1. Jovenet Consulting says:
    March 13, 2018 at 2:14 pm

    …but Jeff is going to find a solution for .BRAND new gTLD applicants 🙂

    Reply
    • Rubens Kuhl says:
      March 13, 2018 at 5:26 pm

      While there are discussions on that, I don’t see that to be achievable. Most names can be brand names, community names or geographic names, so they will all need to go hand in hand.

      Reply
  2. Snoopy says:
    March 13, 2018 at 10:10 pm

    The longer it is delayed the more obvious it will become that ntlds are dead, especially the .brands which have near no usage. Good luck selling another round of this junk Icann.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Snoopy

Click here to cancel reply.