ICANN has announced that the public comment window for new gTLD applications will be extended 45 days and will now close on September 26, 2012. The extension comes after calls to ICANN that the original close date of August 12 was too soon for the public to properly review the more than 1,900 new gTLD applications.
Thus far there have been more than 6,050 comments submitted to ICANN through the new gTLD comment forum. The deadline extension will provide brand owners with more time to strategize about which applications they’d like to submit comments on. While any comments made during this time are not a formal objection to an applied-for string, the application evaluators and the GAC (Government Advisory Committee) will be taking them into consideration during the application reviews.
The comment period extension comes the same week that ICANN held a webinar for new gTLD applicants to provide an update on the application evaluation process. In the webinar, Kurt Pritz, ICANN’s Senior Vice President of Stakeholder Relations, discussed a tentative timeline for the creation of a solution to the application “batching” issue. As of now, ICANN has set forth the following schedule:
- August 19: End of the “batching” comment period. All comments can be emailed to ICANN at newgtld-input@icann.org.
- August 20 – September 27: Timeframe for a solution to be developed
- September 27 – October 3: Summarization of current status
- After October 3: Possible additional public comment periods
It’s likely that “batching” could be a high priority subject at the next ICANN meeting scheduled to begin on October 14 in Toronto, Canada.
How do you think ICANN should proceed with “batching” of the new gTLD applications?
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[i]Not sure if we are going to call these NGTLD’s or just GTLD’s.[/i]How about just TLD’s? What about if Honda buys .car? What happens to ford.car? There are no price caps so annyoe who buys a new TLD can charge whatever they like.We’ve built a TLD specific site and one thing you learn/realize is some subjects/areas have lots of good sites but other areas lack good quality sites and seem quite weak. So for a successful portal, news, directory and/or search site concentrating on a single TLD you are going to need a lot of development to occur first to make it not seem like a lightweight! In .info and .biz for and example this has taken years Like 10 years and for them there was little extra competition. With ICANN’s plan there will be a lot more competition chasing both the development and speculation dollars.