ICANN reopens call on gTLD evaluators

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has announced the reopening of call for the Expression of Internet for independent evaluators for the new generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) programme.

ICANN in a press statement made available to ITRealms Online said that its reopening the Expressions of Interest (EOI) period for independent evaluators to perform key roles in reviewing applications for new generic top-level domains, scheduled to launch in 2010.

The new Expressions of Interest period, ICANN said, opens on July 31, 2009 and closes on 15 September, 2009.

The evaluation areas needed, according to the organization body include the applicant evaluation teams (Technical and Financial Evaluation), geographic name evaluation, string similarity examiners, community priority evaluation panel - formerly known as the comparative evaluation panel.

For further criteria for each panel, interest parties are directed to visit: http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-02apr09-en.htm
ITRealms Online recalls that ICANN during the initial open search period which lasted between February 25 and June 11, 2009; it received expressions of interest from nine, well-qualified candidates interested in serving as independent evaluators.

ICANN in acknowledging the initial respondents, said it would continue to engage in further discussions with the current candidates and will shortly hold an “EOI responders conference” limited to the firms that responded by the original due date of June 11, 2009.

The outcome of this conference, the Internet coordinating body said, would be shared with the public and used to better inform potential new candidates, even as the existing candidates would also be able to update their proposals based on this interaction.

ICANN pointed out that the decision to reopen the search period was made to accommodate the internal requirement to build a robust and scalable operations process with primary and secondary service providers as well as to eliminate the appearance of conflict in the evaluation process.

The Independent Evaluators are expected to be identified by ICANN in Q4, 2009.

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