ICANN has unveiled a few details on the technical glitch that caused the company to shut down its gTLD system hours before the application window should have been closed. Some information regarding applicants and applications might have leaked to other applicants due to the glitch. At the moment, ICANN did not provide any information as of when TAS is to reopen again.
Akram Atallah, ICANN's COO, said in a statement this week that "ICANN has learned of a technical issue with the TLD application system software, or TAS, that allowed a limited number of users to view some other users' file names and user names in certain scenarios. Atallah also notes that the company has conducted a review of all user inquiries received by ICANN's support, and that the preliminary review "has identified a user report on 19 March that appears to be the first report related to this technical issue".
Applicants may face dire consequences of the glitch as most of the companies that have applied for a new generic top-level domain chose not to share it with media due to competition reasons. Exceptions here were some community domain applicants that required community support in order to succeed, .brand applicants and some geographical domains.
It is yet unclear as to when ICANN plans to open the registration again. ICANN plans to update users with some information on new opening times for TAS on Friday, April 20. With April 30 still marked as Big Reveal day, the company might have hard times sticking to the deadline.
