One Step Closer to SiTE
The minutes from the recent ICANN Board Retreat were made available today. The retreat, which took place in Trondheim, Norway this past Thursday and Friday, was a closed meeting of the Board in which they focused several remaining key New gTLD issues. ICANN Chariman, Peter Dengate Thrush, said that progress had been made in the process for creating the New gTLD Program and that several additional reports had been requested. The Chariman of the Board also indicated that a modified version of the Draft Applicant Guidebook (DAG) was also requested. The forthcoming version of the DAG, as well as the additional reports are expected to be released sometime before ICANN 39 in Cartagena, Columbia early this December.
The Board resolved to continue work on key issues such as developing a thorough definition and policy for geographic names, String Similarity issues, and Trademark Protection mechanisms (Trademark Clearinghouse & the (URS) Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS).
A resolution on Vertical Integration, an issues that is on the minds of many prospective New gTLD Applicants, was also made. The resolution states that the GNSO is required to provide a letter to indicate whether or not a consensus had been made, and if so, what that consensus position is. A lack of response from the GNSO will be interpreted as a lack of consensus and the board will implement its own decision — likely to be the default position in the current version of the DAG. The Board will ask that the Vertical Integration Working Group, the group charged with developing policy consensus, to continue its efforts. In the event that consensus is made after the launch of the first application round, the new policy will be evaluated and may be included in the Applicant Guidebook for future New gTLD Rounds.
It appears that ICANN is hard at work to move the New gTLD process forward. It is possible that this next version of the DAG will be finalized by year end with an application period starting in the first half of 2011. We are still on schedule to make .SiTE a reality in 2012!