The Freename Forum

The internet administration ICANN has published parts of the concept manual for a new generic top-level domain for comment. A complete draft is expected to be available in May 2025.

“Fourth Proceeding for Proposed Language for Draft Sections of Next Round AGB” - under this unwieldy title, ICANN launched a public comment phase on February 14, 2025, in which anyone can comment on selected parts of the Applicant Guidebook (AGB for short). Specifically, this concerns 14 modules of the AGB, including “Topic 15: Application Fees”, “Order of Application Processing and the Prioritization Draw”, “Topic 20: Application Change Requests” and “Topic 29: Name Collision”. Although these are only drafts and may change at any time, they give a good impression of what applicants need to be prepared for. This includes in particular the “gTLD evaluation fee”, i.e. the application fee; it is provisionally stated at US$ 227,000 (approx. EUR 217,000). It must be paid by all applicants; however, those who qualify for participation in the Applicant Support Program will receive a discount of 75 to 85 percent. In contrast to the first edition of the GTC from 2012, the application fee also includes up to four variants of the desired character string. Independently of this, numerous other fees may be incurred, but the drafts are silent on the amount; for example, fees for “Brand Eligibility Evaluation”, “Geographic Names Evaluation” and “Name Collision High Risk String Mitigation Plan Evaluation” are mentioned. In addition, as in the first introductory round in 2012, part of the fees will be refunded if an application is withdrawn.

A large part of the application process is taken up by the “Application Questions”, in which each applicant has to answer over 200 questions, starting with trivial things such as “Full Legal Name”, “Primary Business Email Address” or “Tax ID, Business ID, VAT Registration Number, or Equivalent”. But it also goes into detail when ICANN asks for “Disclose Ultimate Control of applying entity” or “Choose the county code of the birthplace of the Billing Point of Contact”. And at the latest when it comes to the question “Explain the benefits and the user communities who will benefit from the introduction of the applied-for variant label(s).” you should know why you are taking part in the application process in the first place. The “Application Change Requests (ACR)” process celebrates its premiere in the second introductory round. It allows the submitted application to be changed. The change procedure affects numerous aspects of the application, but the desired domain extension only in narrow exceptional cases: “However, it should be noted that applicants may not change their applied-for string except in cases where the applicant has qualified as a Brand TLD and is in contention.” We will be hearing a lot more about the “Public Interest Commitments” (PICs) and “Registry Voluntary Commitments” (RVCs). The former are mandatory regulations on how a top level domain may be used; the latter concern voluntary commitments with which an applicant can respond to concerns raised by an interest group such as the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). ICANN can monitor and, if necessary, enforce compliance with both PICs and RVCs.

For the time being, the public has until April 2, 2025 to comment on the drafts. After completion, a report will be prepared and it will be examined whether and, if so, which changes to the GTC are necessary. A final draft of the complete GTC is expected to be available in May 2025 and will then be put out for public comment again. The binding version of the GTC is to be published no later than four months before the start of the application phase; this is currently scheduled for the second quarter of 2026.

Further information can be found at:
https://www.icann.org/en/public-comment ... 14-02-2025