ICANN Board finally approves new gTLD program.

On June 20, 2011, at around 12:00PM local time, during its meeting in Singapore, ICANN's Board adopted resolution on new Top Level Domains program. The adopted resolution gives the opportunity for applicants to submit their proposals for new gTLD starting January 12, 2012. The application period would end April 12, 2012 and the initial evaluations will be published by November 2012.

Overwhelmingly approved resolution by the Board (13 approving, 1 opposed, and 2 abstaining) has been greeted with cheering and applause from the attendees of the ICANN conference in Singapore. I didn't know that just by raising hands, ICANN Board members can trigger orgasm among new gTLD applicants. ;)

Anyway, I can imagine how much alcohol will be consumed tonight… ;)

Congratulations to ICANN Board and good luck to all applicants! I personally expect around 300-500 applications to be submitted by April 2012. Assuming that 90% will be accepted by ICANN, it will dramatically increase number of gTLDs in 2013 from today's 22 gTLDs.

The real game and the real hard work just start. Back-end registry providers, consultants and applicants – this year there will be no Christmas for you. If you work hard enough, Santa Claus will come to you in November 2012 with the letter from ICANN stating “your application(s) has been accepted”.

source: http://www.icann.org/images/singapore-new-gtlds-vote-721-245.jpg

CEO of Yonita, Inc. invited by ICANN to join the team of experts.

CEO and President of Yonita Inc., Dr. Andrzej Bartosiewicz has been invited by ICANN to join the IDN Variant Issues Project as an expert.

The IDN Variant Issues Project undertakes work to identify issues associated with the beneficial and safe delegation of IDN (Internationalized Domain Names) variants of the Top Level Domains. Managing IDN variants is a complex and important subject and the success of the project is dependent on significant community expertise input and cooperation in doing the work.

On June 9th, ICANN announced the formation of six case study teams, comprising a total of 66 top experts from 29 countries and territories. Case Study members provide expertise in the following areas: DNS, IDNA, linguistics, security & scalability, policy, registry/registrar operations, and community relations.

ICANN is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers like domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes like .uk) and the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols that help computers reach each other over the Internet. Careful management of these resources is vital to the Internet's operation, so ICANN's global stakeholders meet regularly to develop policies that ensure the Internet's ongoing security and stability. ICANN is an internationally organized, public benefit non-profit company.

For more about IDN Variant TLD Case Study visit ICANN:
http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-3-09jun11-en.htm