Entries tagged with “newtlds” from Domains / Internet Technology News - DNS News
ICANN have published the 4th version of the DAG.
The DAG - Draft Applicant Guidebook - is like the "bible" for anyone aspiring to run a new TLD.
Unfortunately the new TLD launch cannot take place until the DAG has been finalised - a point that seems to be always just over the horizon.
The board has put forward a motion to decide vertical integration once and for all. There will no cross-ownership allowed.
The board's decision is very interesting.
They are, to quote Dennis Jennings, setting a baseline, but will bow to any policy decision that comes from the GNSO.
There is now a GNSO PDP (Policy Development Process) to discuss vertical integration.
This morning the ICANN board is meeting in Nairobi
On the menu this morning are a number of topics, but only a couple of them are attracting any serious attention. One of them, EOI (Expressions of Interest), was hoped, by some, to be a way to move the new TLD project forward.
The board looks set to completely reject the EOI concept this morning.
At present board members are giving their thoughts on why they are doing this (or not doing it .. )
The ICANN meeting in Nairobi starts officially next Monday. However, as is normally the case, by the time Monday rolls around people will already have been working since Saturday morning (if not earlier).
All ICANN meetings seem to be surrounded by some bit of controversy and excitement, but the Nairobi meeting is possibly more dramatic than many others. The last attempt to hold a meeting in Nairobi failed, with ICANN opting to hold the meeting near LA's airport, LAX, instead. This time round there was quite a bit of controversy and tension surrounding the meeting's location.
The end result of the tension, security worries and everything else is that quite a large number of people who would normally attend the meeting will be staying at home.
Others will be travelling to Reston, VA, where Neustar has organised a US offsite location. Though with the time difference between VA and Nairobi anyone in attendance will end up working through the night!
So what's on the agenda?
New TLDs - this time round the focus will be on "EOI" - the concept of "expressions of interest" that was mooted at the last meeting in Seoul.
DNS SEC will be on the agenda again, but getting excited about it is far from easy - sorry!
IPv4 depletion will probably get a look in, but it's still a "hard sell". Until ISPs "buy in" and start deploying v6 on their public networks it's going to be nigh on impossible to make any tangible or meaningful movement in this area.
IDN ccTLDs. You can expect updates from the various countries that have applied using the "fast track". There might be more applications from other countries, as the meeting will have attracted its usual media circus.
But the real "hot potato" for ICANN is going to be .xxx
Following on from the recent decision which found that ICANN had "dropped the ball", the ICANN board will be voting on the Friday of the public meeting.
In reality you can expect to see board members being canvassed / briefed / harassed by interested parties pretty much all week. How will they vote?
Will the US government try to intervene?
If ICANN do move ahead with .xxx, will that have any impact on new TLDs?
If ICANN's board doesn't move ahead with .xxx this time round there is little or no chance that Stuart Lawley and ICM Registry are going to throw in the towel.
To start with they've no reason to. They have just won a legal battle that shows that ICANN was in the wrong. Sure, it may not be "binding", but any decision that so much as casts a doubt on ICANN's processes and procedures is a "win" for ICM - and rightly so.
So how would ICANN fare if ICM were to pursue this through to the next level?
ICANN stakeholders probably don't want to see their money being poured down a legal drain .. I know I don't ..
ICANN's processes and policies work on the basis of reaching consensus, however that is easier said than done when the actors involved have such disparate views.
Fortunately for those wishing to apply when it all opens up (whenever that is), the ICANN board has come out in support of the latest compromise proposal - EOI. EOI, which is yet another "lovely" acronym to add to the collection, is short for Expression of Interest. The idea being that if people know who is planning on getting a new TLD then it will be much easier to address the issues that those potential TLDs present.
So at least on the ICANN side of things there is some progress. But what of the applicants themselves? You may remember a few months ago there being a debacle surrounding .food. Since then there have been several other minor controversies including one potential applicant for .sport wanting to block ALL sport related domain extensions ..
The latest battleground, however, may come as a surprise to many observers.
While there are many ICANN observers who may have thought that the "City TLDs", such as .nyc, .paris, .london etc., were going to be less contentious, developments in the last couple of days may have changed that.
Minds and Machines have announced another new TLD project that they are backing - .berlin, under the banner of "Unite Berlin". (I thought the wall fell 20 years ago, but what do I know?) While that may appear at first glance to be "non-news" a more keen observer may recall that there is a pre-existing .berlin initiative.
What makes it all the more interesting is that the pre-existing .berlin project has been around for the thick end of 6 years!
So what are Minds and Machines playing at?
Is this merely a push from their backers, Top Level Domain Holdings, or is it a project that is being actively backed by the city of Berlin?
While it's not clear from the new .berlin website who is actually supporting them at this juncture, one would have to assume that a company like Minds and Machines wouldn't launch a campaign for a new TLD "just for fun".
So why are they pursuing a TLD which has an existing well established initiative in place? Or are they seeking to take advantage of this in their bid?
Apparently the city of Berlin has not made any formal commitment or announcement to back anyone yet, so it remains to be seen how they intend to handle the management of .berlin. Without support from the city of Berlin, it is unclear that an applicant would have any chance of being awarded the opportunity to operate the TLD.
Earlier this evening the group submitted its report / paper to ICANN
The report, which runs to about 11 pages, is concise and seems to have covered most of the areas of interest. What's also interesting to note is that the people involved came from a variety of areas and probably give a reasonably good cross-section of the ICANN community.
If you have a few minutes the document is definitely worth reading and is a nice example of how a group of people can get things done quickly and efficiently when needed.
Now if only the rest of the ICANN processes were this quick to reach consensus!
(Maybe pigs flying is more likely!)
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It also became clear that:
- ICANN still wants them to go ahead
- ICANN wants to make everyone happy
You cannot appease all interest groups AND move forward with new TLDs.
The "overarching issues" need to be addressed before the "community" can move towards a workable solution.
For a lot of new TLD applicants the delays with new TLDs are a source of worry, concern and possibly financial strain. While a big corporate may have ample funds to "wait out" the process, this probably wouldn't be the case with some of the smaller TLD projects.
During the week in Seoul some of the applicants tried to come up with a workable "halfway house" style solution.
The concept of garnering information on "interest levels" was put forward in various forms. While the idea has been welcomed in some quarters there are others who are not as comfortable with it.
The logic behind it is quite simple.
At present ICANN does not know how many applicants there will be for new TLDs, nor does it know how many contenders there will be for the same strings. A lot of the "problems" and "issues" are based on guesswork and wild assumptions.
While there may indeed be a basis for concerns it would be significantly easier to address an issue that is clearly presented and identified than by simply "imagining' or "guessing" about its existence.
The Board made reference to this community driven concept during their meeting in Seoul and referenced their experience with planning for the introduction of IDN ccTLDs.
Of course waiting for ICANN to "make a move" can be a frustrating experience, so it's hardly surprising that a group of new TLD applicants got together to form their own, informal, working group to push things forward.
It's also hardly surprising that this move has been met with some criticism from within ICANN circles (drawing parallels with the IRT).
And now ICANN has launched its own initiative to cover the same ground. (Or will the two be working to the same goal? Sorry - I'm getting quite confused by all the back and forth)
Meanwhile the RAA is coming under review again and there's a silly number of other working groups trying to deal with other aspects of ICANN policy...
Oh the fun and games!
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The texts (more than one!) are available here.
Jothan Frakes has posted some initial observations as well
Due to the sheer size and complexity of the guidebook it will probably take time for people to fully digest it and come up with sane critique.
According to news released earlier today the .paris bid is going to be using a combination of AFNIC and CORE.
AFNIC already runs the .fr cctld operations, while CORE runs .cat's operations.
More here
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So how about .green?
Neustar announced earlier today that the organisation running the .green bid has chosen them to run their backend if their bid is successful.
Neustar already runs the registry backend services for .tel, .biz and several ccTLDs.
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