More Comments? ICANN Extends Public Comment Period For An Additional 45 Days

ICANN has announced that it has extended the public comment period for new generic top-level domain (gTLD) applications for an additional 45 days. The public comment period was scheduled to close on August 12th. The new end date is now September 26, 2012. ICANN stated that this extension will not impact other looming deadlines in the gTLD application review process. ICANN's announcement regarding the extension comes after the Association for National Advertisers and others requested that ICANN extend the public comment period.

As discussed previously on this blog, a public comment does not amount to a formal objection. Anyone can submit a comment and there is no fee for doing so. Such comments are designed to bring relevant information and issues to the attention of those charged with processing new gTLD applications. To submit a comment, users must create an account on the new gTLD Public Comment Forum. Those seeking to post a comment must associate the comment with a specific application and the relevant review panel. Application comments received by September 26th will be available to the evaluation panels performing the Initial Evaluation reviews.

According to the Applicant Guidebook, evaluators will perform due diligence on the application comments (i.e., determine their relevance to the evaluation, verify the accuracy of claims, analyze meaningfulness of references cited) and take the information provided in these comments into consideration. In cases where consideration of the comments has impacted the scoring of the application, the evaluators will seek clarification from the applicant. Statements...