The European Regional Registry/Registrar ICANN Meeting took place in Amsterdam on January 24-25. The event has been attended by over 150 representatives of the registrars, registrants and related service providers.

The New gTLD Programme regulating the new top-level domain implementation stood in the forefront of the meeting. Fadi Chehadé, ICANN President and CEO, has admitted that the New gTLD implementation process is not as smooth as it could possibly be. According to the ICANN leader, the ever arising problems might be attributed to the fact that the first Programme stage is to be completed within an extremely limited timeframe. The ICANN would prefer choosing a less strenuous working schedule, which, however, is not a feasible option, as the Internet community is looking forward to the new domains to be introduced as soon as possible.

The Amsterdam meeting has witnessed the ICANN facing a new batch of criticism for failures made within the New gTLD Programme. Notably, the Corporation was confronted with blames that the text of the contract to be entered into between itself and the new domain zone registrants runs counter the laws in effect in a number of jurisdictions. Besides, quite a few contract provisions are in need till this very day of some extra detailed elaboration – despite the fact that very little time, indeed, in relative terms, is left to the date of the first TLD delegation.

The New gTLD Programme was discussed beyond the framework of the formal Amsterdam meeting agenda. Dmitry Burkov, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for Assistance for Internet Technologies and Infrastructure Development, has taken part in the meeting of the applicants for the geographic top-level domains held at the Amsterdam City Hall on the eve of the official ICANN event. The meeting focused on looking at possible options for Sunrise and Landrush periods’ organization and at the expected cost of the names in geographic extensions.

Dmitry Burkov has also attended a new gTLD applicants’ meeting organized by Google in order to discuss the prospects of the establishment of an association aimed at the domains’ promotion. The association is expected to be independent from ICANN and based on the paid membership basis, the respective fees will be spent to enhance the awareness of the new gTLDs and other domains among the Internet users.