ICANN have released a statement on their website relating to the processing of applications for their New gTLD programme. They had already stated that the Root Zone could not increase by more than 1,000 New gTLDs per year. Therefore, the applications for gTLDs, even after a single batch evaluation, cannot all be delegated at one time. This means there still has to be some form of prioritisation of these New gTLDs before they can be made live. Domain Resellers should be watching the process carefully, as New gTLDs represent the most significant change ever experienced in the Domain Name industry.
ICANN give a number of possible methods of ‘Metering’ these applications to delegate them at different times:
- Restricting the number of applications as they enter into the Evaluation phase
- Restricting reporting of initial results of the Evaluation phase, rather than reporting them all at once.
- Advancing those applications that agree to the standard contract first.
- Advancing those applications falling into a specific category, such as IDN applications or applications originating in developing countries.
- Ordering, by some means, the pre-delegation testing of TLDs.
- Ordering, by some means, the delegation of TLDs.
These are just ideas that ICANN have put forward for different methods to separate different applications so they don’t all end up being delegated together and therefore exceeding the 1,000 new gTLDs per year limit. Ideally ICANN would like the New gTLDs to become available in a steady stream, not all at once. The main difference between the ideas is just during which part of the process applications are separated into groups. Either as they are evaluated, when the results of the evaluation are published, or when they are delegated.
ICANN then go on to outline the dates that they expect different parts of the process to be completed:
- By 18th January 2013, ICANN expect to have discussed, designed and implemented one of the metering solutions mentioned above.
- In May 2013, ICANN are expecting the initial evaluation to be finished.
- By the following month, June 2013 they expect that the results of the evaluation processed to be published.
- Then in August 2013, the first ‘Delegation Requests’ will be made.
They also state that some leeway has been integrated into the schedule, but ideally stages should be complete on time or before their due date. This will allow time for more complex stages of the process to be looked at in more detail.
ICANN have published this as a brief outline of their expectations. The fact that this project is so ambitious and totally unprecedented means there are so many unknowns that are likely to be encountered during the process. Hopefully most of these targets will be met and the delegation of these New gTLDs will begin in Q4 2013. Domain Resellers should be watching closely and already letting your clients know that this change is happening. The more you excite your clients with the latest New gTLD news, the more likely they are to want to invest in new domain names when they are finally delegated!