Craig Schwartz, ICANN's Chief gTLD Registry Liaison.
[FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]The first version of the Draft Applicant Guidebook published by ICANN late last year has generated such a large volume of comments that ICANN may slow the new gTLD program down by introducing a third DAG.
The current timeline has a second DAG set to be released in mid February, just before the first ICANN meeting of the year (Mexico). It's always been ICANN's plan to have a second comment period follow. It was then anticipated that the comments received would be used to write the definitive version of the Applicant Guidebook, to be published at the start of May.
Sticking to this timeline would probably allow ICANN to initiate its new gTLD program with a first round of applications towards Q4 2009.
Although by no means certain at this point, this may now be delayed. During a session on new gTLDs held yesterday in Rome (where ICANN registrars and registries are currently in a regional meeting), Chief gTLD Registry Liaison Craig Schwartz hinted that due to the high number of comments and questions ICANN has received on the first DAG, an extra draft may be required.
During that session, I put the question to Craig: "does this mean a third version of the DAG before the final version comes out?" Not unexpectedly, Craig was unable to provide a direct answer. After all, this is probably not a decision ICANN staff will take on their own and it's doubtful they actually know the answer at this point. Other factors may impact the new gTLD program timeline. One example, there may be some Board decisions in Mexico relating to this which the staff will have to implement…
Craig did explain that staff are currently involved in near daily meetings on the second DAG in an effort to come up with a document that takes full account of the extremely varied, sometimes divergent, views expressed during the comment period. "We've heard many voices asking us to slow down a little," he added. "But at the same time there are also a number of people who are explicitly asking us to stay on target." Trying to find the right balance will be the challenge staff will have to face in the coming weeks.[/FONT]
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