The big news from ICANN 44 in Prague is that the digital archery process for batching New gTLDs has been abandoned after a backlash from the domain name community. ICANN are the organisation responsible for overseeing the Internet domain naming system. This is a drastic step for ICANN to take at this late stage and some applicants have been left uncertain about the future of their New gTLDs. We explained the batching process in a previous article. The process was first suspended on 23rd June 2012.

ICANN posted this on their website as an “Approved Resolution” of the New gTLD Program Committee:

"To remain accountable to the ICANN community, after careful consideration of the objections raised to the digital archery process, and following the suspension of the process after identification of a technical issue, the New gTLD Program Committee's decision provides finality to the community on the status of the digital archery process. This decision will not have any impact on the security, stability or resiliency of the DNS as a result of this decision. "

The ‘technical issue’ refers to problems with the network latency involved when contacting the ICANN server to record the applicant’s timestamp. Many argued this was giving those with better infrastructure a better chance of being processed in the first batch. ICANN’s Chief Operating Officer, Akram Atallah, said that ICANN would be completely transparent in their review of the old system and their formulation of an alternative process. No doubt they will be discussing their options and will hopefully develop a solution in the coming days. A lot of industry experts are suggesting that there is no need for a batching process and that the new domain names should all be processed in one batch.

We are hoping that ICANN organises an alternative system as soon as possible. The New gTLDs were always going to be a lengthy process and applicants have a right to have their voice heard and influence the systems and processes ICANN use to process these applications.

Domainmonster.com will be keeping you up to date with everything that happens with the New gTLD process, so don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.