As mentioned yesterday, a group of businesses — mostly consisting of registrars, new gTLD candidates, and new gTLD consultants — sent a letter to ICANN urging the Board of Directors to initiate the new TLD system without further delay. While 61 businesses endorsed the letter, the Internet Commerce Association (ICA) declined the invitation  replying that “ICA would not be serving its members responsibly if we joined in a call for ‘full speed ahead’ when multiple critical details remain in flux.”

“We have yet to see ICANN’s 3rd version of the Draft Applicant Guidebook (DAG) for new gTLDs and have no idea what changes and additions it contains,” stated ICA Counsel Philip Corwin. “…ICANN has also repeatedly stated that it will not open the application window until all the overarching issues related to new gTLDs have been adequately resolved, and ICA supports that position.”

Additionally, “ICA cannot be a signatory to any letter that endorses the IRT [Implementation Recommendation Team] process or its recommendations, much less one that implies they are an improvement over current rules such as the UDRP.”

ICA Counsel Philip Corwin received the request to endorse the draft letter from Jothan Frakes of Minds+Machines.

[via ICA]

The deadline for submitting comments regarding the “Implementation Response Team’s” recommendations (which include a rapid suspension system for domain names under despute) is today. Submitted comments can be viewed here and new comments can be submitted via email to irt-final-report (at) icann.org. While the recommendations are mainly targeted twoards new TLDs, it is obvious that it would at one point be expanded it to the existing TLDs. The Rapid Suspension System would threaten to disable domain names before the accused has a chance to respond to the dispute.