As you may know, the most recent public Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) meeting concluded at the end of March in Singapore. Our new gTLD (generic top-level domain) team has closely examined developments at the meeting and carefully distilled several hot topics and takeaways at a high level.

In advance of ICANN 49, we predicted major developments in several areas, including: ongoing refinements to Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) safeguard advice; the Qualified Launch Program (QLP) for registry operators; Specification 13 to the new gTLD Registry Agreement for dot brand registries; and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority’s (IANA’s) transition away from the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

In addition, characteristic of any ICANN meeting, an impromptu smattering of often controversial topics emerged with respect to rights protection mechanism (RPM) circumvention and intergovernmental organization (IGO) abbreviations. We fully address each one of these subjects below.