ICANN CEO Atallah: Gearing Up For Next Round Of New Internet Domains

One controversial issue from early days of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) could come to final closure ten years later: the decoupling from US oversight of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which manages the central root zone for the domain name system. Meanwhile, the next round of new internet domains is being teed up, but is a few years out, the head of the domain name system oversight body has said.

Currently operated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) under contract with the United States Department of Commerce, the root zone together with the allocation of address blocks to the regional internet registries and the management of the registry for protocol numbers is expected to be transferred to a new ICANN subsidiary controlled by the community.

Acting ICANN CEO and President, Global Domains Division, Akram Atallah today called the delivery of the final proposal to the US Commerce Department National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) “another outstanding example for the multi-stakeholder model.”

At the 2-6 May WSIS Forum meeting, Atallah and several representatives of the ICANN stakeholder bodies presented the next big project for which the domain management body is preparing.

With over a 1,000 new top-level domains (TLDs, like .com) delegated in the root zone, including some non-Latin language TLDs, and only 40 left to process, ICANN is gearing up for a potential next “round” – or even a regular application process for future TLD applicants.

Preparations include extensive evaluations including a global consumer survey, a review of the trademark clearing house and a study on effects of introducing TLDs to the root zone of the DNS. A dedicated, open working group started work in December to prepare for “new gTLD subsequent procedures,” another will evaluate all the rights protection mechanisms established in the first round to answer concerns of trade mark owners.

Both Avri Doria, co-chair of the new gTLD subsequent working group, and Jonathan Zuck, chair of the Competition, Consumer Trust and Consumer Choice Review Team, said at a WSIS Forum workshop yesterday that it is not decided if there will be new TLDs in the future. But Atallah leaned more towards the positive option.

After all, he said, the first round put an end to several “myths,” like that the root would be compromised or that intellectual property owners would have to spend millions of dollars. Now ICANN can “look at how can we do a better job,” he said, though he cautioned against expectations for quick steps. Given the preparatory review, measurement and policy work, the opening up for new applications before 2020 would be “overly optimistic.”