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ICANN prepares to reopen gTLD applications

ICANN will reopen the application system for generic top-level domains on Tuesday, the organisation said late last week.The body, which administers the DNS root zone, had to shut down the gTLD application system on 12 April due to a bug that made some applicants' details visible to others.
Written by David Meyer, Contributor

ICANN will reopen the application system for generic top-level domains on Tuesday, the organisation said late last week.

The body, which administers the DNS root zone, had to shut down the gTLD application system on 12 April due to a bug that made some applicants' details visible to others. It has offered refunds over the incident, which delayed the launch of new domains such as .coke.

In a statement on Thursday, ICANN chief operating officer Akram Atallah said the reopening of the application system would take place at 7pm GMT on Tuesday.

Atallah noted that applicants have been unable to view the details of their applications' progress, while the system has been out of order.

"When we took the system offline on 12 April, just over twelve hours remained in the application window," he wrote. "We anticipate keeping TAS [the TLD Application System] open for eight full days to allow users to review their applications and complete any remaining activities."

"We expect to close TAS at 23:59 GMT on 30 May 2012," Atallah clarified further.

The applicants involved in the debacle will mostly be large corporations, as gTLDs cost $185k (£117k) to register.

The introduction of gTLDs marks the first time that domain extensions can be brand names, as well as the first time they can include non-Latin characters.

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