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Public Forum Focuses on the new gTLDs, IDNs & the Fast Track, ICANN Finances, and Public Participati |
| Posted on
2009-03-06 |
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The 34th ICANN Meeting in Mexico City focused on four areas of concern among the ICANN audience: the new gTLD program, finances at ICANN, and issues on public participation in ICANN.
Without guest speakers or a quick summary of all the issues that have been discussed since the ICANN week started, ICANN Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush quickly opened the floor for questions and comments from the eager audience.
The first two questions raised were about IDN gTLD. Both Jaeyoun Kim and James Seng raised the issue on the minimum number of characters required for a gTLD string. The objection was raised because it is known that two characters or syllables in Korean, Chinese, or Japanese characters can be a meaningful string already; therefore, a minimum of 3 characters can be a deterrent to valid meaningful applications.
The general concern against the new gTLD program remains to be the expansion of abuse and online fraud as Internet extensions are increased. Another issue was the frustrating issue of timeline. This has been raised in a couple of occasions, but ICANN President & CEO Paul Twomey remarked that the RFP still has to be revised, and while December 2009 is the current targeted opening, this may still be moved to February 2010.
Susan Reynolds of .GAL, a prospective new gTLD applicant for a string related to a cultural community, aired their organization's frustration over the ongoing delay in the opening of the application process, which has already translated to loss of significant effort, time, and money on their end. One response from the ICANN Board was that there are still lots of issues that needs to be fixed in the policies and procedure. Another comment from the Board was to separate the categories of applied-for strings and open the application process to uncomplicated strings. These would be strings that are not likely to get into contention, issues on trademarks or other property rights. However, this kind of categorization has not been discussed by the ICANN staff.
Netpia.Com, Inc. also raised an issue through the public forum, and it called the Board's attention on the current refund structure for the applicants, which suggests that a gTLD applicant who fails after initial evaluation can only refund $65,000 of the $185,000 evaluation fee. In other words, if an applicant withdraws their application due to, for example, string contention, their $120,000 is already gone for nothing.
With all the issues raised, the Internet community wonders if ICANN could actually finalize the RFP before the year ends. |
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