ICANN issued some great news today sharing progress on the new GTLDs. Highlights of the “Information Paper” (see the actual document for full details; link is below):
- As of November 13, 2012, there are 13 requests for withdrawal of applications.
- There are no objections filed so far.
- Applicants have submitted 169 application change requests.
- 29 change requests have been reviewed and approved.
- DNS stability review are completed. All strings have passed.
- Geographic names review is close to completion. Geographic review panel will be releasing clarifying questions on November 26.
- Registry services review is expected to be completed in January, 2013.
- Financial and technical evaluations are expected to be complete in August, 2013 (an extension of the previously published date of June, 2013.
- Initial background screenings reviews are complete and some applicants will receive requests for additional information soon.
- The time to respond to clarifying questions has been extended to 4 weeks (from 2). They will be issued in January 2013 (through TAS) to avoid the holidays.
- First publication of initial results are expected to come out in March 2013, however, completion of initial evaluation will be pushed out to August, 2013.
- After the Clarifying Question pilot, they’ve decided to modify the language of clarifying questions to be more specific and to increase the character limits to 7000 characters per question (plus attachments).
- Advisories for Q25, Q30, Q48, and Q50 will be published this month to help applicants prepare in advance. Applicants will not be allowed to interact with evaluation panels.
- Geographic names clarifying questions will be issued on November 26, 2012 through the CSC portal and TAS will reopen on November 26, 2012 to allow applicants to respond to clarifying questions.
- The comment period for the prioritization draw has closed, comments will be posted soon. Notifications of the draw will be sent to applicants on November 16, 2012 and the draw will take place on December 17, 2012 at the Hilton LAX in Los Angeles.
- Ticket sales will take place December 12 through 16 and on the morning of December 17 (God willing, I know where I’m going to be on that day).
