Although the blog has developed a few cobwebs here and there over the last year, it hasn't been because I've stopped following ICANN daily or participating in its policy processes. Far from it. But with the spirit of yesterday's 'more blogging' resolution fresh in mind, here are my predictions for 2008. - The new TLD testbed evaluation process that ICANN launched in November, 2000 will come to a welcome end. By the end of June, 2008, ICANN will have a Request for Proposals published. ICANN will begin to receive and evaluate applications for new top-level domains in Q4, 2008;
- Before accepting new applications, ICANN will clear the queue of its forty-or-so legacy applications. Only a handful of new TLD proponents from 2000 will remain interested in pursuing their old applications. (Predictions: .WEB, .HEALTH, .UNION, .GEO and .III);
- ICANN will expect to receive 50-60 new TLD applications in the first wave but will receive twice that many. Two-thirds of the new TLD applications will be for IDN top-level domains;
- Of the 100 or so new TLD applications received in the first wave, at least 60 will have Verisign, Neustar, or Afilias as the proposed "back-end" registry provider. DENIC and the DotAsia group will account for another 10% of the applications;
- The Whois National Law Procedure will create a new market for privacy services, and registrars will race to incorporate private registration subsidiaries in the countries with the strongest privacy laws;
- The GAC and the ccTLDs will chase themselves in circles trying to create a policy for the creation and allocation of IDN ccTLDs; and
- The JPA discussions between ICANN and the Department of Commerce will produce yet another list of things ICANN should concentrate on in the new year (and a new round of Congressional hearings) but the new list will finally put the lie to the expectation that the U.S. has any intention of freeing ICANN from its U.S. contractual ties....especially in an election year.
Happy New Year! 2008 promises to be an interesting journey.
