ICANN Update from Rome

.ORG is well represented at the ICANN Regional Meeting in Rome this week. I served as Chair of the Registries Constituency that held its meeting yesterday. Our Head of Sales, Nayla Foster, will speak to the Registrars at their meeting on Friday.

The Registries Constituency made substantial progress in meeting the requirements of the ICANN Board for the restructuring of the GNSO. Within the new structure, the registries will be part of the contracted parties house of the new GNSO, together with the registrars accredited by ICANN. The ICANN Board requires new charters for the stakeholders in each house. The Registries Constituency will become the Registries Stakeholder Group, and a draft charter for the Group was substantially completed at the Wednesday meeting.

There was also a spirited discussion on ICANN's draft Guidebook for new gTLD applications and the U.S. government comments on that process.

The registries are deeply concerned that the so-called fast track for IDN ccTLDs will proceed before the application process for gTLDs is completed, with a resulting unfair marketing advantage for the ccTLDs.

In the registrar portion of the conference on Thursday and Friday, I will make a presentation on the .ORG initiatives on DNSSEC and the DNSSEC Coalition, and Nayla will make a sales presentation to the registrars.