7 Steps to the Launch of Fresh TLDs

Kurt Pritz explains what’s left to do in the long march to fresh top level domain names.

During Monday’s Fresh gTLD Program Update session during ICANN’s meeting in Brussels, ICANN Senior Vice President Kurt Pritz spelled out the steps remaining to launch fresh top level domain names. Here they are in his words.

1. “So we’ll take the public comment in and then make a recommendation for community and board decision whether this ought to be the last draft version of the guidebook or not.”

2. “We have to finish the economic study”

3. “finish the program budget and get that approved”

4. “continue on with our operational readiness activities that are tracking to a program plan”

5. “continue executing on our communications strategy and the policy recommends a four-month communication. Well, we would just want to hit that over the head with a sledgehammer in an attempt to ensure that nobody in any region of the world comes up following the process is launched and states, “You
know, I didn’t know regarding this.”

6. Finish the root zone scaling study

7. and then provide applicant support

And there you have it.