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ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom penned his thoughts on being selected to lead the organization and his vision to support globally unified Internet.

Specifically relating to the new gTLD initiative are the following comments:

The Internet has historically thrived whenever the system is opened up further to allow users to express their creativity and innovation. We are now working on opening up the top-level domains so that not only nations but also other peoples and groups can have a unique identity on the Internet.

For example, the chief of the Zulu tribe, His Majesty King Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu, recently sent a letter notifying us of his intent to register the dot-zulu domain name so that different but related businesses and other groups can be linked by their domain name to the entire Zulu community. According to His Majesty, “We believe that the .Zulu TLD, as conceived and proposed by the Dot Zulu Project Inc. represents the best interests of the Zulu community and will be able to provide a viable structure for us as an evolving community.” New York City and the city of Berlin have expressed a similar interest in their own domain names. It is impossible to imagine the possibilities that could occur when these and a multitude of other TLDs are opened.

The ICANN responsibility to support methods for securely introducing new TLDs was specified in the original White Paper that led to our formation. And our original 1998 memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Government stated one of our key responsibilities this way: “Oversight of the policy for determining the circumstances under which new top level domains would be added to the root system.” It went on to say, “The Parties will jointly design, develop, and test the mechanisms, methods, and procedures that will achieve the transition without disrupting the functional operation of the Internet.” According to Chairman of the Board Peter Dengate Thrush, “We are declaring success on these points. It’s been 11 years. We have developed and tested those mechanisms, and we find that they work.”

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At the recent ICANN meeting in Sydney the Intellectual Property Constituency’s Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT) presented details of their recommendations. As expected, the recommendations were the subject of extensive and spirited discussion throughout the week-long meeting.

Members of the non-commercial user’s constituency were the most outspoken against the recommendations in general, calling for more detailed information and more precise descriptions of the types of abuse being targeted in the recommendations. On the other hand, The Government Advisory Committee (GAC) reported that it’s members benefited from the IRT briefings and the GAC believes that these are important issues that deserve focused attention to be resolved prior to the posting of the third version of the Draft Applicant Guidebook. Details of the presentations as well as a full transcript of the session are available by clicking here.

Summaries of Topic Discussions

The IP clearing house and IP claims concepts received strong support overall. As expected, there were many questions focused around who would create, operate and manage the clearing house and where the funding will come from. There were also discussions around other potential uses of the comprehensive database, and developing controls to ensure that the data wouldn’t be used for other than the intended purposes.

The proposed Globally Protected Marks List for protection of highly recognized names didn’t receive substantial support. The perception was such a list only benefits large businesses and offered no real benefit to the rest. Further, any minimum criteria likely would generate complaints from those who just miss making the list regardless.

The Universal Rapid Suspension System drew substantial criticism. More than a few saw the proposal as a replacement for the existing UDRP process. Several questioned the timing and mechanisms for notifying registrants of a dispute prior to a domain name being suspended. A number of opponents suggested considering URS elements as part of an overall review of the UDRP process. Ultimately there appeared to be a general willingness of agreement to improve the current dispute processes to assure mis-use by either respondents or complainants is avoided. The discussions between those for and against the URS made it clear that more detailed examples and cases of how the current system is being abused would help explain the reasoning for particular suggested changes.

ICANN is running further public forums to facilitate on-going discussions with the Internet community regarding workable solutions to some of the outstanding, overarching issues, particularly trademark protection and malicious behaviour. The forums will be in New York on July 13, London on July 15, Hong Kong 24 July, and Abu-Dhabi (tbd).