New GuideBook For gTLD’s Is Published By ICANN & Open For Public Comment

Posted on April 16, 2011

ICANN has just published another draft of its Guidebook for new  new gTLD’s and it has opened the public comment period today, which will close on May 15.

As always the Guidebook is broken down into sections.

The sections that domainer would probably be most interested in are:

Uniform Rapid Suspension

Trademark Clearinghouse

I will be checking those out today and be back to report on what’s contained in the lastest verision

The ICANN board has already announced its intention to approve what will then be the final Guidebook at its meeting in Singapore on June 20th, 2011, which will be the 1st day of the meeting, rather than the last day in which the board traditionally votes.

5 thoughts on “New GuideBook For gTLD’s Is Published By ICANN & Open For Public Comment”

  1. The guidebook for URS is pretty well written. I am particularly concerned though about misuse/abuse of the URS to steal domains. The URS fee is a mere $300, peanuts. So complainants, theoretically, can cheaply use this process to steal domains in the hope of catching registrants off guard (who may inadvertently miss responding within the allotted time frame).

    Consequently, the bar needs to be set very high for any complainant, and with severe penalties for misuse of the URS. Read this from the guidebook …

    “The URS shall incorporate penalties for abuse of the process by trademark holders. (11.2) In the event a party is deemed to have filed two (2) abusive Complaints, or one (1) “deliberate material falsehood,” that party shall be barred from utilizing the URS for one-year.”

    ARE THEY JOKING? Barred for “one year” is meaningless! Unless there is a severe financial penalty plus PERMANENT ban (permanent!!!), then they are opening the door for one URS abuse after another. Registrants need & deserve much more upfront protection than this.

    In other words, ANY and EVERY complainant who utilizes the URS inappropriately should be severely punished on first attempt … such that deliberate misuse of it results in severe damages to the complainant and a PERMANENT ban on ever using the URS again. A one year ban is ridiculous.

  2. It gets worse… they struck out the 5000 word limit on the complaint, raising it to infinite… at the same time, they struck out the 5000 word limit for the response and LOWERED it to 2500 words… by definition, this stacks the deck considerably in the Complainants favor.

  3. If this is a guidebook on “new” TLD’s, then it should not apply to “old” TLD’s (e.g. .com)?

  4. not at first, but it will. There is a parity clause in the other registry contracts.

  5. Guys…let’s get the spelling right. You don’t use an apostrophe to make a word plural. It is gTLDs…not gTLD’s.

    Cheers

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