Oct 23, 2000 : Update 23 October 2000

On Monday, 2 October 2000 the applicationperiod for those seeking to sponsor or operate new TLDs ended.A total of 47applications were received during the application period.Fourty-four of these applications are still active.

Tasks That Have Been Completed

ICANN has completed the following stepsin its review of applications:

• Acknowledging receipt of applications.
• Reviewing the applications to ensure theyinclude all the required parts. All applications being considerednow have all the required major parts, although some still appearto be missing exhibits, postable HTML versions, etc.
• Verifying payment of the application fee.Two of the 47 applications submitted were not accompanied bythe US $50,000 application fee. These two applications (.number/.tel/.phoneand .wap) have been returned.
• Reviewing confidentiality requests andcontacting applicants to notify them of the disposition of therequest. One of the 47 applications (.nyc) was withdrawn becausethe applicant and ICANN did not agree on treatment of confidentialityclaims. All other confidentiality claims have been resolved byagreement. In general, ICANN agreed to treat only a very limitedportion of application materials as confidential.

Tasks Currently Underway

ICANN is currently involved in the followingaspects of the review:

• Where an application seeks alternativeor multiple TLD strings, verifyingthat it is a single application (i.e. that all parts of theapplication apply, without significant variation, to all of thestrings). Applicants submitting materials that constitute morethan one application will be notified in the near future.
• Completing posting of non-confidentialportions of applicationson the ICANN web site.We have now posted nearly all ofthe applications materials, and expect to complete the processin the next few days. Confidentiality claims on a few applicationshave just been resolved. This has resulted in the applicantswithdrawing portions of their applications that they considerconfidential but that ICANN has not agreed to treat confidentially.We are working with these applicants to obtain electronic versionsof the non-confidential portions of their applications for posting.For several other applications, the electronic versions of somesubsidiary files were either not provided or were provided inunusable form. We are correcting these problems as they are identified.
• Technical, business/financial, and legalreview of applications.
• The web-basedpublic comment forum is currently collecting public commentson the applications. In ten days of operation, over 2000 commentshave been submitted.

Adjustments and Elaborations to theSchedule

Based on progress of the process so far,here are a few adjustments and elaboration to the schedule:

• Extension of FirstPublic Comment Period. We originally scheduled the web-based public commentforum on the application materials to go out of operation on27 October. Because of the substantial interest in the publiccomment forum, and the unanticipated delays in completing theposting of all application materials, the forum will continueto be open for comments until 4:00 pm California time (midnightUTC) on Sunday, 5 November 2000.
• Consultation Mechanism.In the schedule, we set aside 18-21 October for possible in-personor videoconferenced interviews with applicants and other personsin connection with applications. We have found that the applicationsthat have been submitted do a generally good job of explainingthe nature of the proposals, and therefore have concluded thatreal-time interviews are not warranted at this time. We intendto gather the additional information we require by posing specificquestions to applicants in e-mail and requesting a written response.The questions and responses will be posted on the web site, exceptfor communications of a strictly clerical nature. We believethis mechanism offers an even greater degree of transparencythan the interview mechanism that was originally scheduled.
• Staff Report.The results of the staff review of the applications will be postedon approximately 8 November 2000. We expect these results tobe presented in a detailed report, including an explanation ofthe goals of the analysis, a detailed statement of how the analysiswas performed, identification of those who participated in thereview process, summaries of findings as to each application,compilations of comparative data on the applications, observationsregarding how the posted criteria for evaluation apply, and otherrelevant results of the analysis.
• Second Public CommentPeriod. A second web-based public comment forum will beestablished at the time the Staff Report is issued to allow thepublic to comment on the report. The second forum will also permitpersons wishing to make their own comments on the applicationsto do so.

Legal Claims Concerning TLDs

Recently ICANN has received correspondencefrom various parties asserting that establishment of particularTLDs would infringe their claimed intellectual property rights.To promote the openness and transparency of the selection process,this correspondence and ICANN's responses have been postedfor consideration of the community.