ICANN: Next round of new gTLDs unlikely to happen before 2023

ICANNOn February 18, 2021, ICANN’s Generic Name Support Organization (gNSO) Board voted to approve the “New Generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) Subsequent Procedures Policy Development Process Final Report.

This Final Report contains certain statements, recommendations, and implementation guidelines, which are defined as “Outputs”. It includes statements about existing policy, recommendations for new policy, and various guidelines on how best to implement it. It addresses some 40 topics that cover all aspects of new gTLD deployment, such as how the deployment should proceed, under what criteria, etc.

On March 24, 2021, this Final Report was transmitted to the ICANN Board of Directors, which must now review the Outputs to determine whether the recommendations are in the best interests of ICANN and its community.

To accomplish this, the Committee requested an “Operational Design Phase (ODP)“, launched in late 2021 and expected to last ten months. It should be transparent to the public and regular reports should be issued . This timeframe could be extended if unforeseen circumstances were to arise.

Therefore, it is very likely that the next round of new gTLDs will be postponed to 2023. All the more so as some of the recommendations raise questions, particularly with regard to the absence of reinforced protection measures against abuse of the Domain Name System (DNS).