Following the conclusion of a webinar conducted by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the V.P. of gTLD Operations, Christine Willett, surprised the attendees with news that the first four New gTLDs are now live on the Internet.
The live New gTLDs are all internationalized domain name (IDN) extensions:
- شبكة (xn--ngbc5azd) – the Arabic word for “Web” or “Network”
- онлайн (xn--80asehdb) – Russian for “Online”
- сайт (xn--80aswg) – Russian for “Web site”
- 游戏 (xn--unup4y) – Chinese for “Game”
Contrary to the historical turnaround time of two weeks, the so-called transition to delegation phase where ICANN approves a New gTLD to be technically added to the global domain space is now expected to take five business days.
As outlined in a blog post by Akram Atallah, the President of the Generic Domains Division at ICANN, the next logistical step is for these New gTLDs to announce a start date for the Sunrise period where trademark holders will have an opportunity to register second-level domains. Following this, the registries are free to make their domains available to the general public during a period called General Availability.
With the date of the first New gTLD launch potentially days away, CSC strongly recommends that trademark owners take action and ensure they have both their Trademark Clearinghouse and overall New gTLD Strategy in place, as outlined in our recent blog post. With this announcement, it is anticipated that the New gTLD Program will move at a quick pace, making it a potentially confusing time for brand holders.
While IDNs are the first New gTLDs to go live, ICANN is expected to transition to delegation the next batch of ASCII (Latin character) TLDs in the coming weeks, if not days.
CSC will continue to monitor the New gTLD registries closely and make sure you get the facts on these launches (minus the hype and speculation) and will inform you once dates are firm via this blog and our soon-to-be-launched, client-only resource center, The Brand Circle. Please feel free to subscribe to our mailing list to make sure you don’t miss any breaking news as it happens.
In the meantime, CSC is ready and able to assist you with the above-listed important preparations. For immediate assistance contact your CSC Client Service Partner or Strategic Account Manager. If you are not a CSC client, please click here for a free consultation.