The TLD Application System (TAS) closes today, May 30th at 23:59 GMT/UTC. Yesterday, ICANN announced its target timeline for the New Generic Top-level Domain Program leading up to the 45th public meeting taking place in Toronto this October.
According to the ICANN event calendar batching begins on June 8th. The batching will be done using the questionable digital archery process and results will be announced on July 11th. Initial TLD evaluation begins on July 12th (with no target end date) and the application comment period will end on August 12th.
The widely anticipated big reveal day is on June 13th. This is when ICANN plans to reveal the applicants for each TLD and open the comment/objection period.
At the beginning of May, ICANN announced that that were 2,300 submitted applications. By now there are probably closer to 3,000. With the deadline less in than 36 hours, I’m sure there is some serious scrambling going on by applicants and ICANN. Last night, Akram Atallah, COO of ICANN said in their TAS update:
As of today, over 500 applications remain incomplete in TAS – either a complete application has not been submitted, and/or the full fee has not been paid. If you have not completed your application, we urge you to do so in TAS as quickly as possible.
Remember, the new gTLD timeline announced during the TAS update yesterday is just a target timeline. Applicants and interested parties can count on a few additional delays and hiccups from ICANN getting this ball rolling. With 500 incomplete/unpaid applications don’t be surprised if the first date pushed back is the big reveal date.
