ICANN's director's board has raised 38 areas of concern about the next round of new gTLDs. These areas need to be addressed, which may take more than a year to resolve, before the board can fully approve policy recommendations sent to it two years ago. ICANN has identified 298 recommendations coming from the GNSO's Final Report into the future of the new gTLD programme.



The board intends to fully approve 94 of those recommendations at its meeting in Cancun next week. A further 168 recommendations are believed to be already covered by approved policies, and the remaining 38 will need further discussions between the board, Council and Governmental Advisory Committee. These concerns cover areas such as legal and financial exposure, potential bylaws violations, and worries about gaming.

One interesting issue is the board's preference for a gradual transition towards making new gTLDs available on a first-come, first-served basis. This would remove contentious issues like string similarity and contention sets. However, it may become a process based on drop-catching where the fastest trigger-finger acquires the gTLD. The board suggests addressing this issue by June this year.

Another issue pertains to the board's fear that the Final Report calls for a "blanket ban" on emojis "at any level" in gTLDs. The board points out that it only has the power to set policy for gTLDs and second-level domains; a ban on [emoji].example.example domains may be ultra vires. However, clarifying that the ban only applies at any "registerable" level may require until October to resolve.

The board is also concerned about proposals for "Registry Voluntary Commitments", which would be contractually enforceable promises. ICANN has previously proposed amending the bylaws to enable RVCs, but the board wants to talk further with the GNSO before taking any action. This could take until April 2024 to sort out.

Finally, the board is concerned that some of the GNSO recommendations may empty ICANN's coffers.

There are currently approximately 800 domain zones in the world, providing entrepreneurs with a wide selection to register their desired domain name. However, prior to 2011, only about 30 domain zones existed, making it a difficult challenge to obtain a free, easy-to-pronounce domain name. The introduction of New gTLD domain zones has resolved this issue by offering new top-level domains that indicate the location or subject of a site. This change occurred as many businesses began to solely exist online, necessitating a greater number of available domain zones. As of 2023, any legal entity can request its own domain zone through ICANN's organized stages. New gTLDs have simplified the process of registering a suitable domain name, as the names of these zones contain business assignments such as .shop for online stores and .news for news pages.

After seeing the domain zone, a user can approximate the purpose of the site, resulting in more targeted visits. Furthermore, domains from New gTLD zones are often cheaper than those from popular zones like .info, .biz, and .com, which were often only available on the secondary market.