ICANN 47 in Durban, South Africa, unofficially began on Saturday, July 13, 2013, with community participants closely following a few important topics that will receive attention and develop further in Durban. This client alert provides a summary of key issues for the Durban meeting, including both developments in the new generic top-level domain (gTLD) program and discussions of Internet policy processes.
Closed Generic TLDs. The Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) and the ICANN Board New gTLD Program Committee (NGPC) will discuss closed generic TLDs in Durban. At present, the new gTLD Registry Agreement provides that registry operators “for a generic string TLD may not impose eligibility criteria for registering names in the TLD that limit registrations exclusively to a single person or entity”—effectively freezing all closed generic TLD applications. The GAC and NGPC met to discuss this issue on Sunday, July 14, 2013, at 10:30 a.m. local time.
Please see full publication below for more information.
