Friday，22  February 2013  Eranet.com News

ICANN is targeting 23 April as the day they will delegate the first of the new generic Top Level Domains Fadi Chehadé said in an ICANN interview last week, the first time the organisation has actually set a date for delegation.

Chehadé said that "we are now targeting to be able to recommend for delegation the first new gTLD as early as the 23rd of April." Chehadé then said "I can say this because we have made great progress in the past few weeks in aligning all the necessary pieces that will permit us to recommend the delegation."

However Chehadé did caution, saying there could be some slippage, but this would only be a matter of days or weeks. And that people should be aware that this does not mean just because the first new gTLD is delegated, it does not mean that it will be found online, rather it will just be in the root.

There is more to ICANN delegating a gTLD to getting it online. The operator of the gTLD has to be prepared as well, and hence it could be some months before the first gTLD operating online.

However, as  a number of significant issues remain over the 'new gTLD' program, including technical implementation, financial arrangements, changes to applications, an objection process, unfinished rights-protection mechanisms, a brewing row over the controlled use of generic names, the release of 'contention sets' for conflicting applications, redrafting of a key contract with the companies that sell domains, and formal objections from governments, to name but a few."