Top Level Domain Holdings, the parent company for Minds + Machines has expressed its satisfaction with the outcomes of the ICANN meeting held in Nairobi last week.
In a news release, the company says that restrictions on cross-ownership between registrars and registries will hinder the number of prospective applicants but benefit Minds + Machines.
This, Top Level Domain Holdings (TLDH) says, continues a trend of increasing the barriers to application for non-experts as ICANN adds additional requirements and restrictions to the framework for the introduction of gTLDs. TLDH is unaffected by this policy and the Board of TLDH therefore expects that TLDH will benefit from this continuing separation between registrars and registries.
And while the company supported the Expressions of Interest programme for prospective new generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) applicants, the programme becomes irrelevant as ICANN nears the point when it says it will be ready to begin accepting applications.
ICANN staff reported during the Nairobi meeting that the fourth draft of Draft Applicant Guidebook is expected to be issued in June and be near its final incarnation, subject only to a final comment period.
Minds + Machines says they welcome ICANNâs focus that the main objective should be to speed up the gTLD process, and the intermediate step of EoIs is unnecessary if ICANN is close to resolving the final details prior to the launch of new gTLDs.