Is the new TLD program already delayed?

ICANN has missed the first target date on its recently approved new top-level domains launch timetable.
The organization was due to publish its proposed final Applicant Guidebook for public comment yesterday, but has failed to do so.
Rumor has it that it could be tomorrow or Friday before the AGB is published.
Could there be a knock-on effect? Does this mean that the process as a whole, scheduled to see the first round of new TLD applications open May 30, 2011, is already delayed?
Be warned, I’m just thinking aloud here. This is pure, idle speculation.
Two thoughts occur to me.
First, does this delay mean that ICANN will not be able to vote on the AGB at its December 10 meeting, as planned?
Second, does this delay create a scenario in which the program’s opponents will be able to lobby for further delays?
The original, quite tight timetable called for a November 9 AGB publication date and the immediate launch of a 30-day public comment period.
Doors would have closed to feedback on December 9, the day before the next ICANN board meeting.
With the AGB publication deadline now missed, and if ICANN otherwise sticks to its plan, a 30-day comment window would still be open when the board convenes in Cartagena.
Since ICANN is not in the habit of voting on issues that are still subject to open comment periods, my guess is that its best bet now will be to tighten the schedule.
While the board has seemingly okayed 30 days for community input, I’m not sure how binding that is, and my reading of ICANN’s bylaws suggests that it could be quite easily be reduced to anything as short as 21 days.
A comment period that lasted beyond December 10 would enable an organization opposed to the new TLD program to submit comments after the vote has been cast, allowing no time for the board to consider them.
This seemingly counter-intuitive move would however create grounds for a subsequent Reconsideration Request if the AGB is approved in Colombia, potentially delaying the process.
Would this be a clever strategy? I doubt it. Reconsideration Requests rarely work, and are hardly the most effective way to have your views heard within ICANN.
Still, these are strange times, and anything seems possible.
One thing is certain, given the enthusiastic reception the recent publication of the timetable received, it will be dispiriting to many today to see that ICANN has already missed its first deliverable date.

ICANN drops the bomb – registries can buy registrars

ICANN has just authorized the biggest shake-up of the domain name industry in a decade, lifting all the major cross-ownership restrictions on registrars and registries.
A surprise resolution passed on Friday at the ICANN board’s retreat could enable registries such as VeriSign to acquire registrars such as Go Daddy, and vice-versa.
The new rules will also allow registrars to apply for and run new top-level domains and, subject to additional conditions, may enable existing registries to eventually start selling direct to end users, potentially bypassing the registrar channel.
The implications of these changes could be enormous, and I expect they could be challenged by affected parties.
The board resolved that ICANN “will not restrict cross-ownership between registries and registrars”, subject to certain yet-to-be written Code of Conduct for preventing abuse.
These looser ownership restrictions will be included in the new TLD Applicant Guidebook. Existing registries will be able to transition to the new rules over time through contract changes.
ICANN will develop mechanisms for enforcing anti-abuse rules through contractual compliance programs, and will have the ability to refer cross-ownership deals to competition authorities.

These provisions may be enhanced by additional enforcement mechanisms such as the use of self-auditing requirements, and the use of graduated sanctions up to and including contractual termination and punitive damages.

The decision appears to have been made partly on the grounds that while almost all existing registry contracts include strict cross-ownership restrictions, it has never been a matter of formal policy.
A vertical integration working group which set out to create a bottom-up consensus policy earlier this year managed to find only deadlock.
ICANN chairman Peter Dengate Thrush said:

In the absence of existing policy or new bottom-up policy recommendations, the Board saw no rationale for placing restrictions on cross-ownership. Any possible abuses can be better addressed by properly targeted mechanisms. Co-ownership rules are not an optimal technique in this area.

Most members of the VI working group broadly favored some level of cross-ownership restriction, such as a 15% cap, while a smaller number favored the “free trade” position that ICANN seems to have gone for.
The companies campaigning hardest against cross-ownership being permitted were arguably Afilias and Go Daddy, though the likes of NeuStar and VeriSign also favored some restrictions.
Opponents of integrating registry and registrar functions argued that giving registrars access to registry data would harm consumers; others countered that this was best addressed through compliance programs rather than ownership caps.
The big winners from this announcement are the start-up new TLD registries, which will not be forced to work exclusively within the existing registrar channel in order to sell their domains.

Van Couvering takes over M+M parent

Antony Van Couvering, chief executive of new top-level domains hopeful Minds + Machines, has taken over as CEO of its parent company, Top Level Domain Holdings.
He replaces Fred Krueger, who remains as chairman, according to StockMarketWire.com.
Casper von Veltheim, head of the German operation, will also become director of European operations.
The changes are related to the recent announcement of a timetable for the introduction of new TLDs, according to Krueger.
M+M plans to apply for a number of TLDs, including .gay, and provides consulting and back-end services to other TLD applicants.

Serbia’s Cyrillic domain approved

Serbia has moved one step closed to having a localized version of its country-code top-level domain added to the DNS root, after ICANN approved its choice of string.
According to the Serbian National Register of Internet Domain Names (RNIDS), which manages .rs, ICANN has told it the Cyrillic string .срб has been approved (Serbian PDF).
The ccTLD would become the second Cyrillic namespace to be approved, after the Russian Federation, under ICANN’s internationalized domain name fast-track process.
Wikipedia tells me that Serbian is the only European language to use both Latin and Cyrillic characters, but that nowadays Cyrillic is the only official script.
I believe the Latin transliteration of the approved string is .”srb”.
RNIDS said it expects to start accepting registrations in the second half of 2011, following public consultations.

New TLD firms to ICANN: “Get on with it”

A number of prospective domain name registries have called on ICANN to shorten the window for its first round of new top-level domain applications.
While we now know that ICANN is working towards a May 30, 2011 opening date for applications, its recently published timeline does not specify how long the application period will last.
However, last month’s draft document “Delegation Rate Scenarios For New gTLDs” (pdf) states that the window of opportunity for TLD applicants will last 90 days.
Now, many of the companies and organizations that have been waiting the longest to apply have asked ICANN to narrow that period to 30 days.
Jon Nevett, president of Domain Dimensions, in a comment on the delegation rate report, wrote:

In prior presentations and discussions with ICANN staff, a 30-day application window had been discussed. I’m not sure how the 30 days turned into a 90-day window in this report. Tacking a 90-day window on after a four-month communications period does not make sense and is extremely unfair to applicants.

After the publication of the final Applicant Guidebook (AGB), ICANN plans to conduct a four-month outreach and marketing effort before accepting applications. The current draft AGB predicts an eight-month processing period for the very simplest applications.
Nevett, and others that subsequently echoed his views, believe that the longer window punishes companies that have invested resources in new TLD applications over the last few years.
There have already been a number of delays to the program’s launch, which was originally scheduled to kick off in 2009, and then mid-2010.
Nevett wrote:

Let’s stop punishing applicants by sucking them dry of all of their working capital by creating a seven-month communications/application period followed by a minimum eight-month review period piled on the years that they already have been waiting. We could do better.

His views were supported in separate comments by commercial operators including of Minds + Machines and .MUSIC, along with geo-TLD efforts including dotBERLIN and dotAfrica.
While the comment period has seen no opposing views, one criticism previously offered by opponents of the new TLD program is that it will unfairly benefit “insiders” – those people who participate regularly in ICANN for their own business purposes.

Will the new TLD guidebook provide answers?

ICANN is due to publish an Applicant Guidebook for new top-level domain registries tomorrow, and there are still big question marks over its contents.
Judging from a preliminary report from the ICANN board’s most-recent official meeting, some key decisions may not have yet been taken.
Perhaps the biggest unresolved issue is whether to permit the “vertical integration” of registry and registrar functions.
Which way ICANN swings on this problem will determine which companies are eligible to apply for new TLDs, how their business models will be structured, and how realistic “.brand” TLDs will be.
The ICANN community failed to reach consensus on this issue, largely due to differing business interests and a few consumer protection concerns.
But it looks like the ICANN board did not even discuss the matter at its October 28 meeting. The preliminary report has this to say:

2. Vertical Integration
In the interests of time, the Chair adjourned this item of discussion to a later date.

That “later date” may have been last Thursday and Friday, when the board held its rescheduled “retreat”, which is not designated as an official meeting.
On “Rec6”, previously known as the “morality and public order” objections process, the board passed no resolution October 28, but seems to have endorsed further discussions with the community.
The preliminary report states:

The Board discussed staff presentation and, in conformance with staff recommendation, directed staff to provide a briefing paper to the working group and to coordinate a call with the working group to further discuss the issues.

If the Rec6 working group mailing list and the GNSO calendar are any guides, that meeting has not yet been called (at least not publically).
The report also addresses geographic domains and issues that need to be taken into account given what ICANN’s Affirmation of Commitments with the US government says about new TLDs.

The Board agreed that staff provide a paper on geographic names to the GAC, the Chair of the GAC would check on the scope of issues still requiring discussion, and then the Chairs of the GAC and the Board would discuss the process for resolution to move this issue forward prior to Cartagena.
…
The Board discussed a paper regarding the adherence to the conditions set out in the Affirmation of Commitments in launching New gTLDs, and the need for identifying objective metrics to measure ICANN’s performance. The Board asked staff to consider what known performance indicators for the New gTLD program may be, what the adequacy scale is for measuring, and try to set that out for future conversation.

With all this in mind, it seems to me that while we may have a timeline for the launch of the new TLD program, there’s still much more to do than merely cross t’s and dot i’s.
Can we expect more placeholder text in tomorrow’s Applicant Guidebook?

ICM buys dotxxx.com for $25,000 and unveils new slogan

ICM Registry, the would-be .xxx registry operator, has acquired the domain name dotxxx.com from a Korean domainer for $25,000, to support an upcoming marketing campaign.
The company is also expected to unveil a punny new slogan, “Let’s be adult about it”, following its recent hiring of international ad agency M&C Saatchi.
The dotxxx.com domain currently redirects to icmregistry.com, the company’s main site. The private sale used Sedo for escrow.
Given the amount of cash ICM has spent attempting to get .xxx approved over the last ten years, $25,000 is a drop in the ocean.
ICANN recently decided to refer its application to the Governmental Advisory Committee for a consultation, before it makes a final call on whether to approve it or not.

Uber-short .travel domains up for grabs

Tralliance, the .travel registry, is to allocate one and two-character domains for the first time, via a request for proposals process.
For the month of December, interested parties will be able to apply to register almost any single or double-character domain without having to pay a tonne at auction. Tralliance said:

This will be your best chance to register a high value domain name in one of the most active industries on the Internet, without paying a premium price, simply by giving us your best ideas for how you will promote your names and .Travel.

This appears to be similar to co-marketing offers made in other TLD registries, such as .biz and .mobi, over the last couple of years.
All the letters of the alphabet and all the numerals will be available. Of the two-letter combinations, only strings matching existing country-code TLDs, such as US and UK, are prohibited.
Tralliance said it will release the names in phases, and that a “very limited” number will be available following the December round.
It’s particularly keen on ideas that somehow tie one super-short .travel domain to a bunch of other normally registered .travels, for maximum visibility.
Tralliance received authorization from ICANN to release these short names in August.

DotFree starts taking .free domain preregistrations

The DotFree Group, which plans to apply to ICANN to run .free as a top-level domain, has become one of the first would-be registries to open its doors for preregistrations.
From noon UTC today, the Czech company has made a tool available on its web site enabling users to reserve their desired strings by handing over their contact information.
Of course, there’s no guarantee any preregistration will actually turn into a .free domain – ICANN may turn down DotFree’s application or award the string to another bidder.
While the plan is to offer some .free domains free of charge, DotFree intends to hold tens (or hundreds) of thousands of “premium” strings for auction or paid-for registrations.
In other words, if you try to register any really juicy strings today, you’re out of luck.
DotFree is one of only a few unapproved TLD registries to accept preregistrations.
ICM Registry started taking .xxx preregs a few years ago, but only after it had already received ICANN’s approval (which was, of course, later revoked).
Another wannabe TLD operator, the MLS Domains Association, is charging “multiple listing service” real estate brokers many hundreds of dollars for the opportunity to own their own .mls domain name.
UPDATE: Messing around with the preregistration tool, I’ve noticed that it appears to ban any string that ends with the number 4. Presumably these will be “premium”, due to the “for” pun.

.XXX debate could test GAC powers

The long-running .xxx top-level domain saga has tested ICANN processes to their limits over the last decade, and it looks like it may do so at least one more time.
Digging a little deeper into the board’s decision to consult with its Governmental Advisory Committee before approving the TLD, it looks like the discussion will be quite broad-based.
The .xxx consultation could in fact have consequences for the board/GAC power balance, helping define the parameters of their future interactions.
This PDF, published at the same time as last week’s board resolution on .xxx, outlines three GAC positions that could have a bearing on the matter.
The first is its communiqué from the Wellington meeting in 2007, which noted that several GAC members were “emphatically opposed” to the introduction of .xxx.
The GAC operates on a consensus basis. When it can’t find consensus, its communiqués also reflect minority positions. So ICANN now wants to know whether the Wellington letter constitutes GAC “advice”.

The question remains whether a position taken by “several members of the GAC” can be equated with GAC advice on public policy matters. If it is not GAC advice, then the concern of inconsistency [of the .xxx contract with GAC advice] diminishes.

Some may be surprised to discover that, after over a decade, there’s no broad agreement about when something the GAC says constitutes official “advice” that ICANN, under its bylaws, must consider.
Attendees to the Brussels meeting this June will recall that the joint board-GAC meeting, transcribed here, spent most of its time labouring on this apparent oversight.
In consulting with the GAC on .xxx, there’s an outside chance that some answers with regards the definition of “advice” may be found.
It wouldn’t be the first time ICM Registry’s controversial application has forced ICANN to address shortcomings in its own accountability procedures.
Notably, the Independent Review Process, promised in the bylaws for years, was eventually implemented to allow ICM’s appeal after it had pushed the Reconsideration Request process to its limit.
ICANN’s latest resolution on .xxx also refers to a letter (pdf) GAC chair Heather Dryden sent to the board in August, which expressed a desire that no “controversial” TLDs should be added to the root.
While ostensibly addressing future TLD applications, rather than TLDs applied for under previous rounds, the letter did say that “objection procedures should apply to all pending and future TLDs”, which was widely interpreted as referring directly to .xxx.
Last week’s ICANN board documents say:

If the “pending” TLD refers to .XXX, the approval of the .XXX sTLD Registry Agreement without allowing for these types of objections would be inconsistent with GAC advice.

I’ve reason to believe that the “pending” language may have been inserted quite late into the drafting of the Dryden letter, and may not enjoy the unanimous support of GAC members.
Regardless, the letter implies that whatever “morality and public order” or “Rec6” objections process winds up in the new TLD Applicant Guidebook should also apply, retroactively, to ICM.
If ICANN were to agree on this point, a precedent would presumably be set that would allow the GAC to issue thirteenth-hour “advice” that moves the goal-posts for future new TLD applicants, removing a significant amount of predictability from the process.
For that reason, I think it’s unlikely that ICM will be told it is subject to the Rec6 process (whatever that may ultimately look like).
The consultation, however, may result in some clarity around where the GAC’s powers of “advice” begin and end, which is probably a good thing.