ICANN’s Board of Directors has passed several resolutions addressing major issues surrounding the expansion of generic top-level domains (gTLDs), including trademark protection, morality and public order, and vertical integration.
The Board engaged in a detailed discussion of the expansion of new gTLDs during a special two-day meeting on September 24-25 in Trondheim, Norway. It also designated San Francisco, California, as the location of its 2011 international meeting.

“The Board made considerable progress on the remaining issues regarding new generic top-level domains, and has asked staff to prepare additional working papers and a modified gTLD applicant guidebook for public review prior to the upcoming ICANN meeting in Cartagena in December 2010,” said Peter Dengate Thrush, Chairman of the Board. “The results represent a key milestone after years of work by the ICANN community as we prepare for community discussion and debate at our upcoming meeting in Colombia.”

ICANN is working to ensure that key issues (including competition, consumer protection, security, stability and resiliency, malicious abuse and rights protection) are sufficiently addressed prior to opening up the application process for new gTLDs.

Expansion of the top-level domain space is intended to promote competition and consumer choice, and the Board’s work this week is aimed at ensuring an effective application and evaluation process with safeguards to mitigate costs and risks.

The Board’s deliberations were guided by recent ICANN community input and provided direction in the implementation of trademark protections, the new registry agreement terms, measures to mitigate malicious conduct, and ensuring root zone stability.

“ICANN is prepared to implement this important new offering to increase consumer choice and to promote competition,” said Rod Beckstrom, President and CEO Rod Beckstrom.