Our team participated remotely in the GAC New gTLD Update meeting that took place on Sunday, March 7th from 14:00 – 17:00 EAT and the GAC Meeting with GNSO, 17:00 – 18:00 EAT.
Several key issues surrounding the launch of the new gTLD program were touched upon and we can expect to hear quite a bit more throughout the the next week. The four overarching issues are Trademark Protection, Malicious Conduct, Root Zone Scalability, and Economic Demand.
Those following the process will particularly find it very interesting to know that trademark protection issues are nearly complete. According to the the speaker, Karen Lentz, the GNSO has finished its analysis of the
Trademark Clearinghouse and the Uniform Rapid Suspension mechanism and it seems as though those two mechanisms will be included in DAG v4 which is expected to be out in early June.
Another point of interest for prospective New gTLD applicants from Asia has to do with IDN gTLDs. Previously, it was a requirement to have 3 or more characters, however, that requirement has been reviewed and in some cases two-character strings will now be allowed.
One question regarding vertical integration was brought up, but no response was given. We suspect that this issue will be discussed in great detail during the GNSO Vertical Integration Working Group Meeting on March 10th.
The EOI (Expressions of Interest) process was discussed in some detail during these meeting. The issues raised were in response to ICANN having said that the DAG v4 (Draft Applicant Guidebook version 4) would be the final draft for the new gTLD application.
The consensus is that if the EOI process is to be a pre-cursor for new gTLD applications, then it does not make sense to go through with it if the DAG v4 will be in its final form in June.
Other EOI issues raised were that some entities would not want to join the EOI process for anonymity reasons, and other stressed that developing countries were not treated fairly by the EOI fee structure.
