ICANN is moving ahead with the implementation of the new gTLD program and is putting a great deal of emphasis on addressing concerns that have been voiced since the original announcement.

The public comment period just closed on the 2nd version of the applicant guidebook, and ICANN announced plans to publish a summary of the comments prior to their meeting in Sydney Australia in June. These comments and the recent proposed solutions to trademark protection issues by the Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT) will be significant discussion topics of the meeting.  While there are a number of details to be addressed, the IRT’s initial framework is a significant improvement to the process for granting rights protection and reducing the opportunity for intentional misrepresentation of trademarks.

After the Sydney meeting, ICANN is planning regional events (dates yet to be announced) in Europe, the Americas and Asia to get further input and refine and finalize the IRT recommendations. The plan appears to be to address the issues, and have a completely revised third version of the Applicant Guidebook published by early September. This would allow time for comments before the ICANN meeting in Seoul in October, and then issue a final draft of the guidebook in order to begin the initial round of applications in the first quarter of 2010.

Melbourne IT DBS held a webinar on the draft proposal from the IRT. To hear a recording of this session click here.

The ICANN Sydney Australia meeting will be held 21 – 26 June 2009. For details about the meeting go to: http://syd.icann.org/