The 39th ICANN International Meeting by all accounts will be a milestone for the Internet community: The ICANN’s Board of Directors is to debate implementation of new Generic top-level domains (gTLD). ICANN has been developing Terms and Conditions for these domains registration for several years and currently is open for public comments on the final draft version of the Terms and Conditions. At the meeting, which is to coincide with the 39th ICANN meeting closure, the ICANN’s executives are to accept or decline the registration Terms and Conditions as well as announce the date for submission of applications by potential registries.
Comments to the Applicant Guide for top-level domain received by ICANN touch upon various subjects: for example, the Olympic committee lodged a protest for the lack of protection of rightholders for trademarks and appellations. The Committee, which is the rightholder of words “Olympiad” and “Olympic” in several countries, requests similar privileges in the top-level domains registration or threatens to launch a trial otherwise. This is not a single case: several organizations sent quite similar “protest notes” to ICANN. According to the Terms and Conditions to be approved by ICANN, disputes arising during the domain names registration process are to be resolved post-factum. ICANN is not afraid of trials: as Rod Beckstrom and Peter Dengate Thrush stated at the press conference in Cartagena, ICANN regularly deals with such letters. “All comments received in the course of the public debate will be given a careful consideration,” – informed Peter Dengate Thrush.
Stability of the root infrastructure is a core issue which endangers the Internet community in case of a mass launch of top-level domains i. The GAC, in particular, is strongly concerned about the uncontrolled growth of root servers: in the GAC’s view, ICANN should care of regulation, otherwise problems with stability would be unavoidable.
Economic effect from a mass registration of new gTLDs is unpredictable - an excessive number of simultaneously competing top-level domains is quite capable of provoking “domain inflation” and a subsequent uncontrolled price drop for a given domain. It should be noted that this is just one of the scenarios and ICANN can only vaguely visualize what may happen at the onset of the top-level domains registration. Rod Beckstrom noted that in spite of the publication of two parts of research which cost ICANN over a million dollars “economic effect of innovations is very hard to measure.” As an example, Mr. Beckstrom yet again cited “unimagined and astonishing“ success of ccTLD .рф as well as the Columbian ccTLD .co.
The US chamber of Commerce adequately participates in the development of new procedures: this government body sent to ICANN a critical letter in which highly recommends ICANN to observe with a signed Agreement of Commitments as well as treat carefully various unclear aspects of registration, and to put off adoption of the final decision. At the press conference Peter Dengate Thrush stressed that during the development and approval of the Terms and Conditions phase ICANN is not going to act in the interests of any government: “ICANN does not work for the benefit of the US government but for the benefit of the whole Internet community. ICANN’s duty before the community is to operate above-board and transparently,” – stated Dengate Thrush. “Our task does not mean to introduce registration Terms and Conditions for new gTLD promptly. If more time is needed, we’ll try to find this additional time. We’ll take the decision very carefully and we’ll try that it will be correct one,” – echoed Rod Beckstrom.
Thus, quite important for the Internet community events may result from the Cartagena meeting this week. On Friday, 10 December, the Board of Directors will review issues regarding top-level domains, among others. Mr. Dengate Thrush thinks that the procedures described in the Applicant Guide can collect some number of positive votes of the Board. However, it has remained unclear whether the Board will approve the launch date of the registration.
