Governments to process new gTLDs by April 2013

Governments to process #newgTLDs by April 2013-update by Stephan Van Gelder #icann #government #law

Governments are set to play a key role in ICANN’s new gTLD program as they are able to object to specific applications. Individual countries may, for instance, feel that a proposed new gTLD would infringe their national laws and may wish to raise this as a red flag to both the applicant and ICANN. The new gTLD applicant guidebook calls this an “early warning” and advises recipients of such a warning to seek to address it before the string they have requested comes up for evaluation by the ICANN Board. It’s not only individual governments that can object. The Government Advisory Committee (GAC ) groups governments together in a single ICANN structure. The GAC can also flag problems with applications. This is done through “GAC advice” given to the ICANN Board. If an application is the object of GAC advice, it has very little chance of being approved unless the applicant is a...

Full article: http://www.netnames.com/blog/2012/10/governments-to-proce...