[council] Public Comment Period on New gTLDs Applicant Guidebook Extended to 15 December 2008 - Additional Memoranda Posted

[Glen de Saint Géry <Glen@xxxxxxxxx>]

[To: council[at]gnso.icann.org; liaison6c[at]gnso.icann.org]
[To: ga[at]gnso.icann.org; announce[at]gnso.icann.org]
[To: regional-liaisons[at]icann.org]

ttp://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-03dec08-en.htm
Public Comment Period on New gTLDs Applicant Guidebook Extended
and Additional Memoranda Posted

3 December 2008

ICANN is extending the New gTLDs Applicant Guidebook public comment deadline 
until December 15. The new deadline applies to the English posting only. For 
the remaining languages the deadline is still January 7. (The extension is in 
line with recent community discussion that time during ICANN meetings (i.e., 
the recent Cairo meeting) should not toll comment periods.) ICANN urges the 
Internet community to continue providing feedback. This consultative process is 
key to assist ICANN to further improve the New gTLDs program.

Since the posting on 23 October 2008 of the Draft Applicant Guidebook for New 
Generic Top-Level Domains, ICANN has been receiving valuable comments from the 
Internet community. Several of the comments and questions have been focused on 
the proposed gTLD base agreement.

Considering the growing interest and on-going inquiries on this topic, ICANN is 
posting today additional background information about the proposed base 
agreement. The additional materials are intended to further clarify the 
explanatory memorandum entitled "Summary Changes to Base Agreement" posted on 
October 23 2008 along with the draft applicant guidebook. This posting does not 
signal an intention to "hold fast" to the current draft - but rather the 
opposite: changes to the draft are already planned and additional information 
will facilitate public discussion regarding the content of those changes.

There are two documents being posted at this time:

(1) "Expanded Summary of Changes to Base Agreement for New gTLDs" [PDF, 246K], 
which is a more comprehensive version of the initially posted memo entitled 
"Summary Changes to Base Agreement" posted with the draft Applicant Guidebook 
in October

(2) "Comparison between gTLD Agreements from 2005-2007 and Draft Base Registry 
Agreement for New gTLDs" [PDF, 191K], which is an annotated "blackline" 
comparison that attempts to show every difference between the 2005-2007 gTLD 
agreements and the proposed new base agreement. It includes 56 detailed 
footnotes explaining most of the additions, deletions, and modifications to the 
language.

As indicated previously, it is important to note that the proposed draft 
agreement is not final and has not yet been approved by ICANN's Board of 
Directors. It has been set out for review and community discussion purposes, 
and we encourage comments and suggestions for improvement. The current draft 
base agreement as well as other aspects of the New gTLD Program are subject to 
changes based on community feedback and other considerations.

ICANN is looking forward to a continuing robust dialog with the Internet 
community and will make all efforts to provider clarifications as needed.

To submit comments on the draft registry agreement and the rest of the draft 
Applicant Guidebook, please continue to visit
http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/comments-en.htm.

Glen de Saint Géry
GNSO Secretariat
gnso.secretariat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://gnso.icann.org