The Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) of ICANN produced a 12-page communique last week in Beijing with significant consequences for those wishing to apply for a new Internet extension.
Alongside a number of other issues, including special protections for intergovernmental organizations in domain names, most significant was Annex 1 of the communique which provided no less than 16 "safeguards" that the world's governments informed the ICANN Board they wanted to apply to new gTLDs before they were approved. The safeguards were split up into different groups – with six applying to all new gTLDs, and others applying to specifically named applications.
The communique was produced during the last session of the week-long conference, giving little time for discussion. ICANN said that it would put the document out for public comment shortly.
Update: We have posted Annex 1 on the IFFOR site.