Review and comment a new gTLD application

The first thing you should do is...to know what the applicant plans to do with the domain name extension. You will need to proceed in 2 steps.

CHECK THE APPLICATION

To check that, you should go to the "New gTLD Current Application Status" page and  find the string you want to check on the first colon on the left.

1. We shall use the example of .AFRICA;
2. Once you've clicked on "AFRICA", it will take you to another page;
3. You should then click on "(download public portion of application)";
4. This should open (or download) another HTML page and I suggest you go down to "MISSION/PURPOSE" - point 18 and read:
1. 18(a) Describe the mission/purpose of your proposed gTLD;
2. 18(b) How proposed gTLD will benefit registrants, Internet users, and others;
3. 18(c) Describe operating rules to eliminate or minimize social costs or financial resource costs, various types of consumer vulnerabilities.

COMMENT THE APPLICATION

Once you've read what the intentions of the applicant are, feel free to comment:

1. Go to the "New gTLD Application Comments Forum" page;
2. You can "view comments" without creating an account;
3. But you will need to "create an account" to comment publicly;
4. Once this is done, (you will have confirmed that receiving an email);
5. You will need to come back to this page log-in with your email and passwords and play with menus.

New gTLD program statistics

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) just published a "Program Statistics" page. On this page will be periodically published high level statistics about the new gTLD program as the applications work their way through the evaluation process.

Check the statistics page here.