Fresh Top Level Domain Names Delayed

Applications won’t be accepted until early 2010.

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has pushed back its estimated time frame to start accepting applications for fresh top level domains. ICANN had hoped to accept applications by December 2009, but now admits the process won’t start until first quarter of 2010.

ICANN hopes to address overarching concerns regarding fresh TLDs at its next meeting in Sydney and then publish the third draft of the applicant guidebook in September with a comment period ending in October:

ICANN will not be producing a third version of the Applicant Guidebook for fresh generic top-level domains ahead of its upcoming June meeting in Sydney, Australia. This is since the discussion of overarching issues will continue through the meeting and beyond (as was expected). Publication of a fresh Guidebook version without addressing these issues might signal that they are not considered notable.

It seems that the Sydney meeting will be an notable one for all internet constituents to attend.

ICANN was heavily criticized for publishing the second draft of the guidebook without first addressing four so-called threshold issues, such as protection of trademark owners.