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ICANN confirms possible new Applicant Guidebook

Kevin Murphy, January 4, 2012, 19:34:26 (UTC), Domain Policy

With just a week left before ICANN begins to accept new generic top-level domain applications, the organization has confirmed that it might release a new draft of the Applicant Guidebook.
As you probably know by now, the Guidebook is the Bible for new gTLD applicants. The most-recent version, published back in September last year, was the eighth.
But ICANN has not ruled out a ninth version, presumably the final draft before applications start rolling into Marina del Rey on January 12.
Senior vice president Kurt Pritz said in an emailed statement:

Since its opening, our customer service center has received a number of questions requesting clarifications on some Guidebook points. These clarifications have been made through the responses by the customer service.
We will summarize those clarifications in one document – that might be an Advisory or in the form of an updated Guidebook. In either case, the positions of applicants will not be affected as the information will repeat that in previously answered questions.

Pritz also added that a new draft of the separate guidebook for the recently developed Applicant Support program may be released after public comments close later this month.
It’s unlikely that a revised Guidebook will contain any big surprises, if it only contains clarifications of text already found in the current version.
I’ve been trawling ICANN’s new gTLD customer service center knowledge base for interesting facts for weeks and come up pretty much empty — most answers to applicants’ questions merely refer back to the Guidebook.
(Hat tip to new gTLD consultancy Fairwinds, which first noticed the possibility of a new Guidebook.)

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