ICANN has published the Proposed Final Applicant Guidebook over this past weekend.  According to the schedule posted by ICANN on a few weeks ago (October 30th, 2010 JST) the newest version of the Guidebook was only a few days behind a very tight schedule.

In order to jump back on track, ICANN has shortened the Public Comment Period to less than 30 days to enable the board to evaluate any issues before it votes to approve the Applicant Guidebook at the upcoming board meeting on December 10th in Cartagena de Indias, Columbia.  Community members wishing to comment on the document have until 12:00 PM UTC on December 10th.
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The minutes from last week’s Special Meeting of the ICANN Board of Directors were made public this afternoon (Nov. 10, 2010 JST). Along with the minutes came a rather stunning announcement: “ICANN Board Votes to Enhance New gTLDs Competition.”

This announcement comes after two years of debate on the subject during which time expert advice was sought out and the GNSO was pushed come up with a workable solution to avoid the board from implementing its default decision, which was reached in Nairobi and then slightly adjusted the decision in version four of the Draft Applicant Guidebook in May. For all intents and purposes, ICANN had all but closed the book on this issue.
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The minutes from the highly anticipated ICANN Board Retreat, which took place in Trondheim, Norway on the 24th and 25th of September, were released today. The meeting focused primarily on remaining key New gTLD issues. According to the official ICANN announcement, ICANN Chairman of the board, Peter Dengate Thrush, stated that progress had been made and additional papers as well as a modified applicant guidebook had been requested for public review. These documents are scheduled to be released prior to the 39th ICANN International public meeting in Cartagena, Columbia this December.
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The New gTLD Applicant Guidebook, Version 4.0 was released to the public today. Upon first glance, it appears to contain quite a bit of additional material to help guide perspective New gTLD applicants through the application process.

As I was skimming the text I came to a dead halt at section 1.2.1 on eligibility (also see the Draft New gTLD Agreement page 5: Use of Registrars) when I realized that what we had expected had arrived. The section of interest reads as follows:

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