Thursday, December 8, 2016

ICANN New gTLD Program update

This is the latest update on the ICANN new gTLD program and its reviews. The video is a little long so I suggest to start at 10:33. There are questions in the end. I apologize for not commenting but I often wonder who on earth has the time to watch a 1:33:44 hour video. Note that slides are interesting and full of information.


Important things from this video:
  • Reviews and PDPs are not going to be done before the 2017/2018 time frame: understand that no date for Round 2 of the ICANN new gTLD program will be given before 2018 (at least);
  • In terms of competition, new sales of second level domains (domain names) are splitting between legacy (".com" - ".net" - ."tel" -...), new gTLDs (".consulting" - ".tennis" - ".brand" -...) and ccTLDs (country code Top-Level Domains surch as ".fr" - ".us" - " .es" -...) to 1/3 each. New gTLDs are "taking their place".
  • Things are going "in the right direction" in terms of trust and competition;
  • Downside consequence of the program is the high cost for Trademark owners;
  • Interesting question asked (27:05), and which reflects the low capacity of ICANN to take decisions fast and act: "...you review is one of the most highly visible and there is quite a bit of expectations and it is important to manage expectations. You're not going to come up with conclusions but trends and directions: are you coming with recommendations?"
    Answer given: there will be conclusions but they will be substantive, more datas would be better... (translation: "we have no idea when this ends which makes it impossible to estimate when round 2 of the ICANN new gTLD program starts");
  • Potential 10,000 more brands are waiting to submit their new gTLD application.
For Internet users who pay interest to new gTLDs and other related questions, I recommend to watch this video.

As an Internet user
Participants to this meeting use surveys (public participation), which results represent the general thought from the entire 3.4 billion Internet users. The reality is that very few people participate in these surveys. Even I, as an ICANN NCUC member and promoter of the ICANN new gTLD program, I sometime don't know where to go to participate!
The ICANN -  which is a pretty rich not-for-profit organization - does not want to invest in communication to promote new gTLDs. Should't it then invest in a global communication to push internet users to participate in these surveys?

The real world
To understand the gap that does exist between ICANN and the real world, I suggest to go to 1:14:30 in the video.

Domain name registration volumes: 
  • Singular VS Plural versions of a similar new gTLD; 
  • New gTLDs related to FRENCH new gTLD applications; 
  • New gTLDs related to RELIGION.
Our reports are available here.

Since most new gTLDs have launched, reports will be updated on a monthly basis starting January 2017.

Recent Trademark Clearinghouse Sunrise Period announcements

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