ICANN needs more time for new gTLDs
Posted by Jamila Hunte on Tue, Nov 10, 2009
Have you formulated your brand strategy to ensure that you do not miss your opportunity to leverage this new offering or protect your brand and trademarks from unauthorized and malicious uses? Well, not to worry, neither is ICANN. Those who are concerned about the new gTLDs have been watching and waiting for ICANN to give notice as to when they will begin accepting applications for the new gTLDs.A few months ago, we were told that they will begin to accept new
applications in Q1 of 2010 and now it looks as though this will not happen until the second half of 2010. ICANN’s CEO Rod Beckstrom has said that the new gTLDs will be available when, “we’ve adequately addressed the important issues that are on the table.” In other words, this is still a work in progress. The third version of the Draft Application Guidebook was released in early October and is available for public comment until November 22. There are still the issues of trademark protection mechanisms and stability and security of the Internet infrastructure that need to be further researched and developed. In a recent article published by Managing IP they have pointed out that one of the topics of great debate, the Globally Protected Marks List, has been squashed. This was a very popular idea that was welcomed by the trademark community; however they have received a lot of criticism from those outside the trademark community. What has been made very clear is that ICANN cannot make everyone happy, which is why the whole idea of the new gTLDs has had so much set back. So will the new gTLDs really happen? I will say, most likely, it is really just a matter of when. ICANN is continuing its quest to find a “happy medium”, if that is possible. They have also announced that they have received twelve responses for Expressions of Interest (EOI) for independent evaluators in the new gTLD program. These evaluators will examine ICANN’s operational readiness for the launch of the new gTLDs.
Although the launch of the new gTLDs do not appear to be happening any time soon, brand owners must also not forget about ICANN’s plan to deploy Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). They will introduce a limited number of internationalized ccTLDs. In case you are wondering what this is all about, this is where a user can obtain a domain with a string of characters in their native language. ICANN has released their proposed final implementation plan regarding the IDN ccTLDs and have a launch date for this “Fast Track Process” on November 16th, 2009. If as a brand owner you have not heard of this, please take note of this as new issues can arise by the launch of these new ccTLDs. Educate yourself, understand what the registration procedures will entail and ensure that if there is a Sunrise period proposed for these ccTLDs that you are able to take full advantage and not get left in the dark.