ICANN has announced they believe they will garner support from the internet community and be in a position to launch the new generic Top Level Domains on 20 June at the beginning of their 41st public meeting to be held in Singapore. “We’ve had other timelines before, but not one that the community and the Board feels is so achievable as this one,” said Peter Dengate Thrush, Chairman of the Board of Directors. “Most of the hard issues are on the table or behind us.” Dengate Thrush made the comments in a video interview following ICANN’s 40th public meeting in San Francisco

New Generic Top-Level Domains Likely to Dominate ICANN’s 40th Public Meeting [news release] Rod Beckstrom, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), said the organization’s multi-stakeholder model has been validated over many years by the smooth and reliable functioning of the Internet. “We believe in a simple principle: everyone with an interest in the Internet has an equal right to be heard in its governance,” said Rod Beckstrom. “When all voices are heard, no single voice can dominate an organization – not even governments.

The Africa Top Level Domains (AfTLD) organisation has announced it will be seeking to apply for the .AFRICA gTLD. AfTLD will be seeking a mandate to apply for and operate the new gTLD from the African Union and ICANN when it begins taking applications for new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs). “We are not just interested in .AFRICA only, but we want to also take on .AFRIQUE, which is the French version of .AFRICA

Last week’s meeting in Brussels between ICANN and their Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) regarding the new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) was a like a car “wreck” writes Milton Mueller on the Internet Governance blog.

Abstract: “After years of discussion and thought, gTLDs are being expanded. They will allow for more innovation, choice and change to a global Internet presently served by just 21 generic top-level domain names:” ICANN In a world with over 1.6 billion Internet users, the expansion of generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) continues to be a key issue for legal right holders and Internet users generally.

The impact of new generic Top Level Domains on the price of existing gTLDs and ccTLDs is likely to be limited, said Tim Schumacher, CEO of leading domain name marketplace Sedo, following the Domain Pulse conference in Vienna last week. “I don’t think the new gTLDs will have a major impact on pricing of existing TLDs

Domain names have been the focus of articles in America’s two leading quality newspapers, The New York Times and The Washington Post, over the last few days.

You can never keep trademark holders down, not when they have oodles of money to pay oodles of lawyers, which is what ICANN is finding as it plans to implement new generic Top Level Domains, with the expectation being they will commence taking applications sometime this year. Following intense lobbying of ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee, the GAC succumbed to the pressure and have been putting pressure on ICANN to give trademark holders what they want.

Government control of the internet is a seemingly never-ending battle between government and its supporters on the one hand, usually when it suits the supporters in their battle of choice, and opponents on the other.

Government control of the internet is a seemingly never-ending battle between government and its supporters on the one hand, usually when it suits the supporters in their battle of choice, and opponents on the other. The Financial Times has published an article looking at the topic, starting with WikiLeaks and the “unstoppable stream of disclosures has intensified efforts by governments to exert more control over information and the complex technology underpinning its availability on the internet. From the UN to the self-governing body overseeing web addresses, countries are working to assert more authority, with some success.” One area the article looks at is new generic Top Level Domains, with the FT saying that governmental complaints have been one of the main reasons for the delays in their introduction