I think it's fair to say that ICANN is in a state of near meltdown at the moment. With less than a week to go before the new gTLD program's first application window is opened, on Thursday January 12, 2012, the amount of work being done is mind-bending.

The ICANN Board held a special meeting on January 5 to determine the program's state of readiness ahead of the launch. Out of that meeting comes a roadmap showing key dates, major steps already completed, and others still to complete.

Biggest shock to prospective applicants might be that a new version of the applicant guidebook - the program's bible - is scheduled for release on January 11. The day before the program launches!

And while the application and fee processing systems are now listed as ready, the batch processing mechanism will not be completed until February 29. That's more than a month into the Jan 12 to Apr 12 application window.

The entity tasked with running the trademark protection database known as the Trademark Clearinghouse won't be selected until the end of February either. While the governmental early warning system designed to enable states to point out those applications they don't like will have to wait until the end of March.

However, this is part of the normal launch program and should not give cause for concern. Apart from the late publication of a new version of the guidebook, the other steps can be covered concurrent to the launch window. And ICANN is being very open about these final preparations so that applicants are not taken by surprise.

Bottom line, there can now be little doubt. The new gTLD program will launch on January 12… and ICANN will be ready!

Yesterday evening, the GNSO held its last teleconference of the year. We had invited ICANN's new gTLD supremo Kurt Pritz to give an update on the recent US Congress hearings.

Kurt was ICANN's spokesperson in both hearings, and felt that the first was more favourable to ICANN than the second. When I asked him if he thought the launch of the new gTLD program might be delayed as a result of these hearings, his response was a cryptic: "the risk is greater than zero".

Although there are calls for a delay to the program, it was fiercely defended by both Pritz and some American politicians who want to see ICANN's unique model of non state-centric governance succeed. "The New gTD Program demonstrates the strength of the bottom-up, multi-stakeholder process," Pritz said in his testimony to the US House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Communications and Technology. "The New gTLD Program under discussion today is the implementation of an ICANN-community policy recommendation to achieve one of ICANN's foundational mandates."

As part of its drive to open up its new gTLD program to potential applicants that do not have the financial resources to fulfil the full program requirements, ICANN is reducing the fees from USD 185,000 to USD 47,000. A 76% rebate!

But before applicants decide to drop their current business model and relocate to an under privileged country, they should know that there are strict criteria to qualify for the rebate. The first prerequisite: that their TLD serve the public interest and operate in the benefit of the public.

Applicants applying for the support will also have to accept being evaluated later. ICANN needs the extra time to evaluate the requests for support. Those TLD applications that are successful will then be evaluated in the same way as all the others.

However, applicants requesting support and not passing that evaluation would then be invalidated for the whole TLD application process. A logical attempt to discourage those that do not need support from "trying it on".

The amount of applications that can be supported will be limited by the amount of money available in the support fund. So far, ICANN has set aside USD 2 million for the fund, and has called for others to chip in. If no-one does, then a maximum of 14 needy applicants will be supported. That means some applicants may qualify for support, but ICANN may not have the funds to grant it. In such cases, the applicants will be given the choice to either continue as non-supported applicants and pay the full fee, or withdraw from the process.

ICANN's plan is to recruit the applicant support evaluation panel by June 2012 and to be able to notify those applicants that have been deemed in need of support by November of next year.

Does ICANN have its head stuck in the sand on new gTLDs? The campaign against the Internet governance organisation has been building up in the past few months, with public protests from entities like the American national advertisers' association ANA or CRIDO, a group of major corporations.

The protest themselves play like a broken record.

"Where's the economic studies to show that new gTLDs are needed?" or "new gTLDs will make it more difficult to deal with crime on the Net."

ICANN has done economic studies. But how can a study predict innovation? Did studies prove that Facebook or Google might work? Thankfully, there was no need. Those major Internet initiatives where the result of private enterprise doing what it does best: innovating without being constrained by politics.

Those worried about crime point to the WHOIS as a potential flaw that might be exploited by cybercrooks. There again, this is waving away years of policy development by the ICANN community to try and find solutions to these (very real) problems.

That community is still working hard. Recent results include fresh proposals on how to improve WHOIS.

But in the light of a US Senate hearing happening today on "ICANN's Expansion of Top Level Domains", it’s the critics that are getting all the press. As former ICANN staffer Kieren McCarthy notes, ICANN is missing a lot of PR opportunities here by simply not responding to critics.

Worse, this is the second such hearing where ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom has chosen not to attend in person but rather to send his Senior VP Kurt Pritz. While Kurt, as the man in charge of the new gTLD program, is probably one of the most knowledgeable people in the world on this topic, you might have expected ICANN to front its CEO for such an important event.

Because despite the fact that the launch date has been set at Jan 12, 2012, new gTLDs aren't here yet. And as storm clouds gather in an ever-more ominous show of protest from the new gTLD naysayers, ICANN needs to be as convincing as it can be today in front of the US Senate, with a panel where Kurt Pritz can expect to feel very much on his own opposite staunch critics like ANA VP Dan Jaffe or ex ICANN Board member turned ICANN opponent Esther Dyson.

The forces of resistance to change and innovation are stepping up their fight against the rollout of new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs).

Never mind the fact that the program itself is the result of:

• 21 months (from 2005 to 2007) of intense work by the GNSO resulting in a consensus vote to approve the program's guiding principles from the various groups that make up the GNSO – ICANN's manager of policy development for gTLDs.
• 7 draft versions of the program's Applicant Guidebook, documented and augmented by 47 comment periods during which over 2,400 comments were received and analysed by the ICANN team in charge of implementing the GNSO's new gTLD policy recommendations.
• 55 explanatory texts or independent reports were produced during this implementation phase which lasted from June 2008 to June 2011.

Since the ICANN Board vote to approve the program on June 20 2011, America's Association of National Advertisers is the driving force behind a new movement to stop new gTLDs, teaming up with businesses and companies to create the Coalition for Responsible Internet Domain Oversight, or CRIDO.

On November 10, CRIDO sent a letter to the department of commerce to express its "strong concern with respect to the June 2011 decision by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers".

The letter mentions "troubling conflict of interest questions" which can no doubt be read as references to Peter Dengate Thrush's move, just after the June 2011 Board vote and as soon as he stepped down from his position as Chairman of the ICANN Board, to a gTLD consultancy firm.

In its letter, CRIDO seems happy to forget that ICANN is no longer under US control and calls on the DoC to postpone the January 12, 2012 application window. The letter is signed by 40 companies, including Amex, Adobe, Coca Cola, Dell, Ford, HP, Kellogg, Nestle USA, and Samsung.

I'm at the Domain Forum in Sofia, Bulgaria, today doing a couple of presentations on new gTLDs. The first is an introduction to the program itself and the following panel I'm on is looking at what registrars will have to face as many new gTLDs come online and they are asked to connect to them.

The Domain Forum itself is a great opportunity to get outside the usual "ICANN bubble" that those of us who are used to attending ICANN meetings and working in that community tend to live in month-in, month-out.

It's a clear reminder that for some people, the acronyms "new gTLDs", "IDN, "GNSO" or GAC" don't mean anything. And yet, the GNSO's recommendations for the new gTLD program were clear: there needs to be enough communication ahead of launch so that as many potential applicants as possible are aware of the program.

Events like the Domain Forum in Sofia are an important part of achieving that aim. Looking around the room, this is clear. ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom is here in Sofia speaking just before me as part of ICANN's outreach efforts on the new gTLD program. In attendance here in Bulgaria are the country's minister for IT, the country's GAC representative, and many people just wanting to learn more about the program itself.

Find out more about the Domain Forum here.

As part of its drive to make sure its new gTLD program has maximum visibility, ICANN has opened a FAQ and general guidance site on new gTLDs.

The site provides help and information for potential new applicants, including useful links to the latest version of the applicant guidebook.

Video guides to new gTLDs and a calendar of upcoming gTLD-related events also feature.

As the program itself ramps up, the site will provide data on actual applications and stats for the first application round.

ICANN has published the latest version of the Applicant Guidebook. This September 19 version brings only limited changes compared to the May 30, 2011 guidebook.

The first and most noticeable is the inclusion of an actual first application round start and end date, and time!

Quoting from the new guidebook: The user registration and application submission periods open at 00:01 UTC 12 January 2012. The user registration period closes at 23:59 UTC 29 March 2012.

The new AG also takes into account the June 20, 2011 ICANN Board resolution which officially gave the new gTLD program a green light but included extra instructions. For instance, module 2 of the guidebook now describes how key terms associated with the Red Cross and the Olympic Committee cannot be requested as gTLDs.

These rules are subject to change however, as ICANN community work continues on issues such as whether the aforementioned organisations should also benefit from having their names protected at the second level, and how support can be provided (financial or otherwise) to needy applicants.

As amazing as that may sound, ICANN is keeping to its schedule! The new gTLD Applicant Guidebook was published on the target date of May 30, 2011.

This version is considered final. So if ICANN can weather the continued opposition from some groups with particularly strong lobbying skills, then its Board will be voting to approve the new gTLD program during a special meeting on June 20 in Singapore.

Could this really be the home stretch?

The ICANN unofficial timeline for the launch of the new gTLDs seems to be on track. A planned teleconference between ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) and the Board happened yesterday (Friday May 20) on schedule.

Unofficial reports say the meeting was very positive, although differences of opinions are still said to exist on trademarks.

The next major milestone will be May 30, when the final Applicant Guidebook is scheduled to be posted.

An extra GAC/Board meeting, not featured on the timeline, has been confirmed for June 19, in Singapore. The day before the planned final meeting of the Board to give the program its official green light.

The Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet of the US Congress has called a hearing into ICANN's new gTLD program for Wednesday May 4, 2011.

Considering who has initiated this, no-one will be surprised to see much of the proceedings centre around trademark protection.

What may be more surprising to some is that representing ICANN in front of the US congressmen attending the hearing will be Kurt Pritz. Although Pritz is ICANN's Senior Vice President of Stakeholder Relations and the man in charge of the new gTLD program, most would probably have expected Rod Beckstrom, the organisation's CEO, to take centre stage.

Instead, it appears that Beckstrom will not even make an appearance. Many will no doubt be surprised by this as when ICANN was heard by the House of Representatives in June 2009, then-CEO Paul Twomey went to Washington in person.

The reason for Beckstrom deciding not to go may be due to his past links to the US administration (he was US cybersecurity tsar in 2008) and a desire not to see those colour this hearing…

It had been promised for April 15… It's out on April 15th!

The new DAG (Draft Applicant Guidebook) is out. This shows both the incredible amount of work ICANN Staff is putting into getting this program finished and that the June 20th date for green-lighting the new gTLD program is one that ICANN really wants to keep to.

Read the new DAG here.

Following final approval at last March's San Francisco ICANN meeting, the newest Internet domain's roll-out has started.

Dot XXX registry ICM had already announced details of the adult entertainment domain's sunrise periods and launch program.

Now comes the news that the domain has been activated at the root and is therefore fully functional, as evidenced by ICM's new website address.

As of today, there are 22 active generic Top Level Domains on the Internet.

The meeting was called in an attempt to resolve the remaining issues of contention between ICANN's decision-making body and the representatives of the world's governments on the subject of the new gTLD program. ICANN's bylaws state that if the GAC gives advice and if the Board, after having listened to that advice, is not ready to follow it, a formal consultation must take place in order to air the differences.

Brussels was not that meeting. It was a first step in the bylaws process. The consultation meeting has been scheduled for March 17, the day before the Board meeting that will bring ICANN San Francisco, the first of 2011's three International ICANN Meetings, to a close.

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.