Google, ICANN's Business Constituency Support Continuous gTLD Rollout

An additional time-sensitive gTLD round is likely needed “to process any existing gTLD contentions,” but after that a continuous process for introducing new gTLDs would allow gTLD strings to “be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis upon an applicant demonstrating its ability to meet all technical and financial requirements,” Google said. A continuous process “would streamline the application process itself by eliminating or lessening the burdens associated with a number of application processes such as batching/queueing, string contention, and objections.” It would also allow “more efficient use of ICANN’s resources by allowing ICANN to establish a standing capacity rather than ramping up and down large-scale efforts coordinated around chunks of applications in individual rounds,” Google said. Reliance on the rounds-based process in 2012 “contributed to rush, inefficiency, and missed deadlines across applicants, service providers, ICANN, and other entities engaged in the application process.”

Business stakeholders believe a continuous process “would provide predictability and reduce the need to rush to submit applications for fear of being locked out,” the BC said. “Businesses can also develop more robust applications once use cases and initial plans had been fully developed, rather than being rushed to submit applications within a set timeframe. Delays associated with execution of the ICANN Registry Agreement, delegation, and commercial rollout would also be mitigated as applicants could wait to submit their applications until they had full confidence in their own timelines for launching a TLD.” Uncertainty during the 2012 round “forced some prospective applicants to gamble on whether or not a TLD would be useful to them in the future, or risk the possibility of being indefinitely locked out of the market to operate a TLD,” Google said.

ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) urged ICANN to do “a rigorous assessment of all public policy related aspects of the current round” before defining the rules for future rounds. GAC said it “expects that those elements of the current framework for new gTLDs that are considered appropriate by the GAC will remain and that the elements that aren't considered satisfactory will be improved for subsequent rounds.”

ICANN’s At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) said it believes that “due care and attention needs to be exerted in pacing the work” on revising gTLD rollout policies. “As such, all issues raised will be thoroughly aired and addressed in order to prevent any segment of the next potential round from contributing to further unpredictability. We urge the Board to reject the urge to rush the process and to take the time to reflect and then fix identified problems.” ALAC noted pressure from commercial stakeholders to quickly begin a new gTLD round but said that “we cannot help but note the numbers so far from this round do not communicate a major pent-up demand for domain names.” The International Trademark Association also said ICANN should “take the time that is necessary to provide a thorough consideration of all the issues, including identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the initial” gTLD program before beginning any work on changes to gTLD policies.

The GNSO’s IP Constituency (IPC) said it supports a “reboot” of the gTLD program that “must consider more than just financial and technical health, but also the potential impact of new gTLDs on users, consumers, IP owners, businesses, governments” and others. Such a reboot of the program should determine “whether we should restrict applications in subsequent rounds, and the basis for such a restriction,” the IPC said. “This should be determined before diving into any” other issues ICANN identified. “ICANN must examine how to support applicants from developing areas, as this was widely regarded as a failure of the current round,” the IPC said. There should also be a “total overhaul of the criteria for geographic and community applications, so that we can be sure that any restrictions are narrowly tailored to achieve whatever the stated goal of the restriction is.”

ALAC opposed doing simultaneous work on all policy issues related to future gTLD rollouts. “This type of work is indeed very challenging to both ICANN staff and the volunteer community in particular,” ALAC said. “It provides a significant advantage to participation by those community members who are paid for their attendance, to the detriment of volunteers who are over-stretched when they need to balance ICANN-related pro-bono work with other work. With the ICANN communities complaining of volunteer overload, working on all five preliminary groupings would seriously unbalance” ICANN’s multistakeholder model.

The Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) said it supports simultaneous policy development processes (PDP) because it “will allow the community to address the potentially wide range of issues at hand in a more streamlined and efficient fashion, avoiding the likelihood that the overall PDP and, thereby, future application processes will be held up by narrow issues for which community consensus cannot be reached.” Regardless, rulemakings for new gTLD rounds shouldn’t affect “ICANN’s ability to properly resolve issues that were dealt with inconsistently in the first round, such as string confusion, plurals, and community applications -- taking into account feedback from the community as a whole,” RySG said. Google also said it supports simultaneous rulemaking processes, saying it would “address directly related issues in a more efficient manner.” A simultaneous approach would “also invite a broader range of voices to participate, as community members with experience and interests in particular issue areas could opt for focused engagement and participation, without having to commit to participate across the full duration and scope of” sequential processes, Google said.

FairWinds Partners urged ICANN to account for a more diverse set of gTLD types in future rounds “in a way that streamlines the application and evaluation processes, but preserves fairness in the overall process.” Brand-name gTLDs particularly need to be taken into account since they “will be active participants in subsequent rounds,” FairWinds said. “As such, creating policies that reflect the unique nature of .BRANDs will allow for a more streamlined and predictable process in future gTLD rounds.” Acknowledging brands and other new types of gTLD applicants will give ICANN “the chance to create a more efficient and streamlined process that will continue to foster growth and innovation in the domain name system,” FairWinds said.