The Internet community continues to monitor the progress on ICANN's imminent opening of the application round for new gTLDs even as the second draft of the Applicant Guidebook (RFP) was released last week.

In its 34th Public Meeting, ICANN held a Question and Answer forum exclusively on the new gTLDs. ICANN Senior Vice President - Services, Kurt Pritz, presented the revisions done in the RFP before he answered the questions from the audience.

Pritz said the purpose of the Q&A was to encourage more public participation in the finalization of the RFP. Pritz said all comments made prior to the release of the second draft of the RFP have been well-received and analyzed, and the gTLD application process has been modified based on the public comment.

According to Pritz, a TLD string should not be approved if it could infringe the rights of others, or misuse an established community label. Having said that, Pritz pointed out that for applications that will not meet objections and will not get into string contention, the application process will be very simple, and will only require initial evaluation before it goes to transition to delegation.

Pritz also mentioned some of the most essential changes in the second draft of RFP, including the annual registry fee that is now set $25,000 a year for less than 50,000 transactions. A refund structure was also added in the second draft RFP, and the comparative evaluation fee was eliminated. Comparative evaluation fee was intended for community-based applicants that would get into a string contention. Now, if such an applicant calls for a comparative evaluation, they will not have to pay fees anymore, as community-based applicants are usually limited in funding.

Since auction was clearly defined in the latest draft RFP as the solution for string contention, Pritz explained that ICANN came up with this decision to encourage the parties in a string contention to settle. He said they expect only a few auctions and a lot of settlements.

An important issue that was raised separately by a couple of people in the audience was that ICANN has not yet fully explained and justified the need for new gTLDs - not in the economic sense, not in the functional sense. Although ICANN has repeatedly said that the introduction of new gTLDs would foster competition and increase user choice, many in the Q&A audience thinks that a clearer report, perhaps an economic report, would better explain the need for new gTLDs.

Finally, Pritz answered a question regarding a change in the timeline. He said that ICANN expects to release the final RFP in October, and applications could be received in December. This, Pritz, added, is possible if ICANN could resolve trademark issues and lay out a specific policy regarding that in relation to the application round. At worst, Pritz said that ICANN might start receiving applications in February.