Friday, March 29, 2013

Slides of last ICANN webinar are available

Agenda on the slides:
  1. New gTLD Program Update Christine Willett;
  2. VP gTLD Operations + New gTLD Stability & Security Jeff Moss;
  3. Chief Security Officer + New gTLD Operational Readiness Fadi Chehadé;
  4. President & CEO + Questions.
Content:
  1. New gTLD Program Timeline;
  2. Initial Evaluation Results;
  3. Initial Evaluation Reports;
  4. Finalizing Initial Evaluation Reports;
  5. Initial Evaluation Panel Stats;
  6. Contracting Phase: Registry Agreement Eligibility;
  7. Pre-Delegation Testing Pilot Update;
  8. Pre-Delegation Testing;
  9. Customer Service Center Status;
  10. Trademark Clearinghouse;
  11. Objections & Dispute Resolution;
  12. Independent Objector;
  13. Beijing New gTLD Sessions;
  14. Security, Stability, & Resiliency (SSR) Update;
  15. New gTLD Security Stability & Resiliency (SSR) Update;
  16. Root Zone Management;
  17. Root Server System Readiness Progress Report;
  18. Operational Readiness in the context of SSR;
  19. Dealing with unforeseen (SSR) effects of new TLD delegations;
  20. SSR and new TLDs: A community effort;
  21. New gTLD Operational Readiness.

Agenda published prior to publishing the slides:
  1. Initial Evaluation (IE);
  2. Update Pre-delegation testing & pilot;
  3. Contracting Rights;
  4. Protections;
  5. Closed generics;
Download the presentation (PDF file)

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Why won't ICANN protect wine Geographical Indications?

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Trademark Clearinghouse - Introduction

Friday, March 22, 2013

.VIN applicant passes ICANN Initial Evaluation

EFOW to ask ICANN about Geographical Indications


This is a letter from EFOW which asks ICANN regarding the protection of wine Geographical Indications (and more) in the new gTLD program.

Sender's Affiliation: 
European Federation of Origin Wines

Issue:
ICANN initiatives for the attribution of new gTLD - PDO and PGI wines’ concerns.
Letter from the European Federation of Origin Wines regarding Geographical Indications.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Total protection requested for Geographical Indications under .VIN, .WINE and all other TLDs

In its letter recently sent to ICANN, the European Federation of Origin Wines, a Brussels based-organisation representing PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) and PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) wines towards European and International institutions, would like to bring to ICANN's attention a crucial issue for the safeguard of the wine sector concerning the attribution of new generic top-level domains (gTLD).

EFOW is concerned that this new procedure could lead to the abuses of its members' Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs).

Read the letter "en avant-première" on CircleId.

New gTLDs SWOT Analysis: OPPORTUNITIES

This post follows part 2 of my SWOT analysis of the ICANN new gTLD program.

The SWOT analysis is a structured planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project: the ICANN new gTLD program in this case.

OPPORTUNITIES
  1. For Registries; 
  2. For Service Providers; 
  3. For ICANN; 
  4. For Registrants; 
  5. For Domainers; 
  6. For Cybersquatters. 
Read more on CircleId.

Monday, March 11, 2013

The abyss between ICANN and Registrants

For French reader only ;-)

"Partie des attributions de l’ICANN dans la réalisation de son programme de lancement des nouvelles extensions est de permettre aux gens qui achèteront des noms de domaine d’être protégés s’ils appartiennent à un groupe. Exemple concret à partir de l'expérience du secteur viticole."

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Slides of the new gTLD Applicant Webinar

Agenda:

  • Initial Evaluation Program Status;
  • Initial Evaluation Results;
  • Customer Service Center Status;
  • Pre-Delegation Testing (PDT);
  • Rights Protection Mechanisms;
  • Public Interest Commitments (PIC);
  • Program Timeline;
  • Pre-Beijing New gTLD Program Update Webinar.
Download the latest presentation (PDF document) here (Date of the Webinar: 6 March 2013).

Last new gTLD program Timeline


Original document with coming changes can be found here.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

No "Pics" for wine applications...yet?

ICANN requested that New gTLD applicants submit Public Interest Commitments (PIC) Specifications. PIC Specifications provide applicants with the opportunity to make public interest commitments based on statements made in their applications and/or additional public interest commitments which were not included in their applications but to which they intend to commit.

Understand: we now ask you to "voluntary" confirm that you will do everything you wrote in your application so we can cause you trouble if you don't stick to the text in the future.

For example, some applicants stated in their applications that they intend to implement registration restrictions or heightened rights protection mechanisms above those required in the current draft of the New gTLD Registry Agreement.
But outside of community-based applications, there are no mechanisms for requiring these plans and objectives to be incorporated into the New gTLD Registry Agreement.

Understand: you could write whatever you liked in your application and if you don't do what you wrote, it does not matter as long as you do the minimum.

As of today none of the 3 applicants for all wine related applications submitted any Public Interest Commitments. But is this necessary ? Why would an applicant with the intention to earn money and who has been waiting so long after ICANN, would provide more information that could:
  1. cause him trouble in the future?
  2. take the risk to slow down the ICANN process "a little more"?
  3. endanger his application? 
On the other hand, it is possible the first wine applicant to submit a Public Interest Commitment benefits a greater credibility during his validation process. This morning, there were more than 70 PICs submitted.

Update (03/07/2013): a total of 499 PIC specs have been received and are now posted on the current application status page on the new gTLD. "Donuts", applicant for both .WINE and .VIN new gTLDs, submitted 2; none were received from Afilias and Famous Four Media.

PICs can be found on the right column here.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

My last email to the IO (the Independent Objector)

I just read most of the comments by the Independent Objector on controversial applications. My first thought is that the IO procedure is useless: "all this for that ?".

It is obvious we want more pornography for our children on Internet...

Now the guy seems to have done his job: he did complex analyses for some of the most commented applications and he wrote a lot. ICANN likes it when its service providers write a lot :-)

As for now there won't be any objection but this could change. In some of its comments he wrote: "this comment is still preliminary and does not prejudge the IO’s final decision to file an objection against the applications or not."

So I sent him this email:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Dear Sir,

Since your web site is available in English only, I guess I should be writing in English too.

I just read your comments on Controversial Applications and wonder if more are coming: I found the same sentence in some comments: "It is important to note that this comment is still preliminary and does not prejudge the IO’s final decision to file an objection against the application or not."

I have 2 questions:
  1. Can you confirm you may still Object to some of the already listed new gTLD applications?
  2. Could there be more comments coming on new applications on your web site?
Thank you.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

I hope he answers.

.BRAND new gTLD Reports are updated once a month: CLICK HERE !