On 18 March 2011, a regular ICANN meeting ended up in San Francisco. It was new generic and sponsored top-level domains (gTLD и sTLD) that were most discussed issues at the meeting.
At present, the ICANN committees and ad-hoc groups work on the so called “Applicant’s Guidebook for Generic Top-Level Domain”, a document which describes the whole process: from the submission of the application for the domain name to the post factum disputes resolution. Publication of the final version and its subsequent approval both by ICANN and the Internet-community will allow dozens of organizations, which are doing there best to become registries for new toplevel domains, finally, start accepting applications for domain names registration.
Currently the situation is as follows: despite rather a high “entry barrier” equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars for an application, the race for top-level domains has begun. Actually, the whole new market depends on the “Applicant’s Guidebook for Generic topTop-level Level domainDomain”, which hasn’t been passed yet. For example, two companies, DotGay LLC and Dot Gay Alliance, lay claim to TLD .gay. At the same time, both organizations have already invested huge money both in their proper positioning and in technical support. gTLD has been disputed by two organizations, both of whom have rather considerable influence in the region (AfTLD represents an alliance of registries, where Dotconnect Africa boasts of the African Union approval). However, perhaps, zone .xxx is the most mind-boggling example of creation of a new top-level domain.
The domain’s history began back in 2004. At the time, ICM Registry, a registry for the proposed domain .xxx, submitted its application to ICANN. It has taken ICANN more than 7 years to take a decision on the “ambiguous” domain; meanwhile, as the Coordination Center wrote before, the ICM Registry’s operational costs amounted to USD 100,000 a month. It looks like the ICM Registry is just a step away from the launch of the domain: on 18 March 2011, domain .xxx finally was officially approved by the ICANN Board of Directors.
The ICM Registry is ready for this decision and formed all required technical infrastructure; plus, and on the eve of the meeting they contracted an organization to control over the trade mark owners’ rights in the new domain. So, there are no barriers to the actual assignment of the domain to the organization: for example, according to Kevin Murphy, analyst of DomainIncite.com, , the domain may already be delegated within ten days.
It is obvious that for the ICM Registry, which has invested rather considerable sums and exerted efforts in the so far non-existent domain, the challenge is to launch domain zone .xxx as soon as pssible. The organization is committed to its mission and is going to begin the first stage of the three- phase priority registration in coming June, and the accreditation of registrars will be pursued within very tight timelines. That said, it is highly likely that the open registration in the new domain will start already this year.
The only thing down the road that can tie up the ICM Registry’s hands is lawsuits: not all stakeholders in the industry for adult entertainment and domain industry operators cheered the new domain. The industry “for adults” is very concerned of the possibility of a possible censorship in the future and a very easy way of blocking the domain. For example, in an interview to Washington Post a Saudi Embassy representative in the USA already claimedthat access to domain .xxx would be blocked at the government level and the Free Speech Coalition association, which unites lawyers and the adult entertainment industry activists is threatening to file a suit against the ICM Registry asserting that the ICANN decision threatens the freedom of speech in this sector. It is worth noting that Mr. Lawrence Strickling, the Assistant Secretary of the US Department of Commerce, expressed his extreme disappointment with the ICANN Board’s ruling. Some experts assume that tough policies by certain states regarding domain .xxx put consistency of the Internet root sector at jeopardy.
The story with delegation of the domain is coming to an end for the ICM Registry ;, however it is other domain industry operators have not been so lucky: GAC and ICANN failed to come to to terms on the “Applicant’s Guidebook”. This signifies means that the launch of the whole program of new generic domains was once again put off. However, ICANN published a roadmap for further actions, according to which the final decision regarding the Guidebook may be expected by the end of June, just before the next meeting in Singapore.
In the event the ICANN keeps up with the timelines and announces approval of the “Applicant’s Guidebook” at its meeting in Singapore, new domains will take a long time to appear: while ICANN will need about two or three months for marketing (the Corporation earlier cited the timeline), it will receive first applications no earlier than in the autumn of 2011. Given the current average speed of processing an domain application, from the gap between the receipt of the first applications to a domain delegation will make up between six and twelve months. Once delegated, priority registration will steal some more time, which means that domains launched within the new program will actually not be available for the general public before 2013. The above is also applied to domains which are not disputed; meanwhile it will sure take more time to process applications challenged by ICANN and third parties. Plus, note that the program raises a lot of objections from GAC, and no Applicant will be granted a domain until all disputes are resolved
