ICANN staff has just confirmed to the GNSO that the meeting initially planned for Amman, Jordan, will now take place in Singapore. The Amman meeting was cancelled due to the current uncertainty in the region.

The meeting will happen from June 19 to 24 2011.

In preparation for the March San Francisco meeting, ICANN introduced a new sponsorship program with both increased costs and levels of sponsorship.

A new top sponsorship level was created and set at a whopping USD 500,000. Other packages also saw their costs increase.

Sponsors found it hard to stomach the changes and ICANN has therefore revised its sponsorship program.

"Earlier this year, ICANN announced a new sponsorship program that introduced higher levels of support, as well as price increases for lower level sponsorship packages," says ICANN on its sponsorship website.

"Some of our supporters have found it difficult to purchase the sponsorship package that provides their preferred benefits at the new cost.

We have listened to concerns expressed by our community and today are announcing a revised sponsorship program that reduces the cost for many of our lower level sponsorship packages while retaining some of the higher level opportunities. 

We have also created a 33% discount rate for non-profit organizations."

In the run-up to an upcoming meeting between the GAC and its Board, ICANN has published a set of briefing papers. The page used for this also includes a proposed set of dates listed as ICANN's expected path forward.

Of special interest is the April 14 date listed as the date for publication of the AG. This is tentative and does depend on the outcome of the two GAC/Board meetings that will happen in Brussels next week and then in San Francisco on March 17.

But it also sets a clear target date for the start of the new gTLD program.

ICANN has posted a preliminary draft of its FY 2012 budget (ICANN's fiscal year runs from July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012). The document makes for interesting reading if you know what to look for. Here are a few titbits I picked up.

500 new gTLD applications

ICANN is still working on a year 1 estimate of 500 new gTLD applications and therefore forecasts taking in USD 92,500,000 in application fees (at 185,000 a pop) if the program launches during the upcoming fiscal year.

Greater than expected ccTLD contributions

Unlike gTLD registries and accredited registrars, ICANN has no direct contract with ccTLD registries. So they are free to contribute as little, or as much, to ICANN's budget as they see fit. It seems that for FY 2011, ICANN had underestimated the amount ccTLD operators would be willing to front. ICANN had forecast taking in USD 835,113 from ccTLD registries. In fact, it got USD 1,600,000. Ok so that's still far from the USD 32,647,000 that new gTLD registries contributed or the USD 29,159,000 that registrars ponied up, but it's still nice to see ccTLD registries getting stuck in.

Meeting sponsors

For the upcoming San Francisco meeting, in March, ICANN has considerably upped the price of its sponsorship packages. Some speculated that might be to finance Bill Clinton as a keynote speaker for the opening ceremony (Clinton charges organisers when he gives a speech). But the draft budget provides another possible explanation. ICANN had forecast getting USD 1,067,973 in sponsorship revenue for FY 2011. For the upcoming fiscal year, it has forecast less at USD 900,000. Have worries about not making the budget pushed ICANN to up its prices?