April 12, 2012 Foundation for Assistance for Internet Technologies and Infrastructure Development submitted to ICANN the application for .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА domains. The application was uploaded to special online ICANN TAS System (TLD Application System) to 10:00 Moscow time.

Formally, two applications were prepared: for TLD in Latin script and its „twin“ version in Cyrillic. The volume of each application is nearly 250 pages, excluding the attachments. According to the New gTLD Program, the applications will be considered separately. That is why the Foundation paid two fees to ICANN ($185.000 for .MOSCOW string and the same fee for .МОСКВА).   

April 30, 2012 these and other applications, submitted to ICANN during the first round of the New gTLD Program, will be published online. During the next two months the Internet community and official state representatives will have the opportunity to express their objections to the strings planned to be implemented. The initial evaluation of applications will begin on the 12th of June, 2012 and will last for 5 months. The delegation of approved domains may start on December 1, 2012. An extended evaluation begins after that and will last for several months.  

Applications for .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА TLDs, prepared by the Foundation, contain the information about technical, organizational and financial details of their operation.

In particular, the preliminary plan for the launch of the domains for Moscow has been described in the application as well. It is planned, that before the General Availability  period to be opened, a part of .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА domains is going to be reserved for the needs of the government. In addition, it is planned to hold Sunrise period for all trademark owners as well. After them the priority will get legal entities registered in Moscow that own an identification mark. After Sunrise period Landrush starts where the domain names registration cost will be reduced in a step-by-step way until it reaches the standard price that will be about 600 Roubles (20$) for registrants.

The Department of Information Technology of Moscow, the relevant body of Government that supports the implementation of .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА TLDs, considers the domains as „a great opportunity for raising the awareness of Moscow on the Internet“.  This is stated in the official letters sent to ICANN by Artyom Ermolaev, the Minister of the Moscow City Government, the Head of the Department of Information Technology. It is emphasized that policy and launch plan for Moscow domains were developed in cooperation with the Department. For this purpose Artyom Ermolaev became a member of the FAITID Board of Trustees

„Having filed the application for .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА TLDs, we completed the first and, perhaps, the most significant milestone in this considerable domains’ implementation project,“ said Dmitry Burkov, Chairman of the Foundation for Assistance for Internet Technologies and Infrastructure Development. “The documents submitted to ICANN today became the result of close international cooperation. Sedari provided expert assistance and the technical part of the applications was prepared in partnership with ISC consortium. RU-CENTER, the national domain name registrar, became the initiator of the project and remains our strategic partner for today, providing organizational support. Together with our colleagues we have left a long way behind us, preparing the applications for about 6 months. We’re sure all aspects of introduction and further operation of the domains have been described in the documentation provided to ICANN. I would like to thank everyone who helped us in this project. We hope that ICANN will give positive assessment to our work and .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА will be approved in autumn 2012, following the initial evaluation of applications.“

Prospects of the TLDs for Moscow development as well as other Russian initiatives in the New gTLD Program will be discussed at the RIF+CIB 2012 – the biggest local Internet industry event will be held on April 18-20, 2012 in Moscow Region.