The 51st international meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) formally concluded on Thursday, October 16, 2014, in Los Angeles. As always, the ICANN community discussed several high-profile topics during the meeting, all of which are relevant to registry operators, new generic top-level domain (gTLD) applicants and brand owners alike, including: two-character names and geographic names; string confusion objection review, indirect contention, and auctions; domain name collision mitigation and trademark sunrise protections; internet governance and accountability mechanisms; planning for subsequent new gTLD rounds; Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs); and the ongoing Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Review. Our new gTLD team has closely examined developments at the meeting and carefully distilled the following high-level takeaways on these subjects, which have continued to blossom and garner further attention since the meeting.

1. Two-Character Names and Geographic Names -

Currently, under Specification 5 of the new gTLD Registry Agreement, registry operators must reserve two-character strings from registration at the second level. To date, ICANN has permitted individual registry operators to seek permission to allocate these names by submitting Registry Service Evaluation Process (RSEP) requests on a case-by-case basis. Given the high volume of such requests, during ICANN 51, ICANN indicated its willingness to consider a new process other than RSEP to review requests for “new services” such as the release of two-character domain names that can be triggered under the Registry Agreement or for those services that already have obtained ICANN approval. The Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) provided its advice on two-character strings in its Los Angeles Communiqué, and since ICANN 51, ICANN has announced a new procedure for approving registry operators to release two-character strings at the second level, taking into account the GAC advice. This new procedure is expected to be implemented as of December 1, 2014. We have long advocated for the efficient release of two-character strings at the second level, and believe that the new procedure announced by ICANN will help streamline the process for new gTLD registry operators.