Resolution doesn’t resolve much; uncertainty remains.
The ICANN Board New gTLD Program Committee (NGPC) has approved a resolution ruling on a number of items of advice from the Governmental Advisory Committee with regards to new top level domain names.
The resolution is specifically limited to non-safeguard advice. You can see how it ruled on each item here (pdf).
For the most part, the decisions are limited to “we’ll consider the advice”.
For example, some GAC members were concerned about the applications for .islam and .halal and believe the applications should not go forward.
The committee’s response is “The NGPC accepts this advice”.
But before you freak out and think ICANN agreed to kill off these two applications, you have to read on.
NGPC is just agreeing to enter into dialogue with the GAC about the matter.
The same thing goes for the issue of singular and plural versions of the same strings. The NGPC has agreed to consider whether or not these should be allowed.
So although this is a resolution, not much is actually resolved. (Except for .africa and .gcc, which are officially gone unless they find a way to appeal.)
That said, it does mean that much of the GAC’s advice will continue to be debated in the coming months. This adds uncertainty, and many new TLD applicants (and others in the community) believe that the overreaching GAC advice should have been dead on arrival.
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