Rules on non-safeguard GAC advice — ICANN Board

Resolution doesn’t resolve much; uncertainty remains.

The ICANN Board Fresh gTLD Program Committee (NGPC) has approved a resolution ruling on a number of items of advice from the Governmental Advisory Committee with regards to fresh top level domain names.

The resolution is specifically limited to non-safeguard advice. You can see how it ruled on each item here (pdf).

For the most part, the decisions are limited to “we’ll consider the advice”.

For example, some GAC members were concerned regarding the applications for .islam and .halal and believe the applications ought to not go forward.

The committee’s response is “The NGPC accepts this advice”.

But ahead of you freak out and think ICANN agreed to kill off these two applications, you have to read on.

NGPC is just agreeing to enter into dialogue with the GAC regarding the matter.

The same thing goes for the issue of singular and plural versions of the same strings. The NGPC has agreed to consider whether or not these ought to be allowed.

So although this is a resolution, not much is actually resolved. (Except for .africa and .gcc, which are officially gone unless they find a way to appeal.)

That stated, it does mean that much of the GAC’s advice will continue to be debated in the coming months. This adds uncertainty, and many fresh TLD applicants (and others in the community) believe that the overreaching GAC advice ought to have been dead on arrival.