On Monday, December 6 – the opening day of ICANN’s Cartagena meeting – ICA filed a request that ICANN extend the deadline for comments on the proposed Final Applicant Guidebook for new gTLDs by 2-3 weeks beyond its original end date of Friday, December 10. Our letter (available at http://forum.icann.org/lists/5gtld-guide/msg00021.html) stated in part:
The 28 days allowed for comment on this AG is just over half the average time (50 days) allotted for comment on the four prior iterations of the Guidebook; a 2-3 week extension would bring the length of the comment period in line with that provided for prior versions. This fifth version of the AG does not just contain proposed resolutions of previously discussed matters but significant new material that we are working to assimilate and understand. Many ICA members are present in Cartagena and busy attending sessions and interfacing with staff in this attempt, but meaningful participation at the Cartagena meetings mitigates against preparation of a fully informed comment letter for consideration by our membership prior to its submission in just under four days.
ICANN, however, was unmoved at the time and we and others filed comments in the midst of the Cartagena meeting – even after it became clear that a Board vote to approve the Guidebook just hours after the close of the comment period would cause an outcry from numerous corners of the ICANN community.
We thought the matter closed. Then, on Friday, December 17, ICANN took the unprecedented step of reopening and extending the comment deadline by an additional month, until January 15, 2011, with no explanation other than that it was “Taking into account public comment and decisions made during ICANN’s Cartagena meeting”. (http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-17dec10-en.htm )
Although we would have preferred this decision to have been made before we filed our initial comments we nonetheless welcome it. ICA intends to supplement its original filing with more detailed suggestions for adjusting the Guidebook language regarding disqualification of potential gTLD applicants who have lost UDRP decisions. We also intend to urge ICANN’s Board to stick to its position that the Guidebook’s treatments of trademark protections are essentially closed when it meets with the GAC in February. The Board’s September closed door decision to shorten the standard response time on URS filings from 20 to 14 days only sacrificed registrant due process rights with no commensurate reduction in trademark interest lobbying. Any further “improvements” to the Guidebook’s rights protection mechanisms will undercut the GNSO’s policy-making leadership and reopen settled matters in a manner that will likely further delay the opening of the application window.