An important final step for all domain name applications is delegation. ICANN org is signing three Registry Agreements and Specification 13 Amendments from Amazon EU S.à r.l. (Amazon corporation) for top-level domains (TLDs) .AMAZON, .亚马逊, and .アマゾン. These signed agreements represent the next steps toward the delegation of the TLDs to the root zone.
To provide a bit of history, the Amazon corporation applied for .AMAZON and two Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) versions of the word "Amazon" in 2012. Since that time, interested parties have provided multistakeholder consideration, consultation, and deliberation resulting in multiple resolutions, recommendations, and advice from the ICANN Board, Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), and the Board Accountability Mechanisms Committee (BAMC).
Since the Amazon corporation prevailed in its Independent Review Process against ICANN in July 2017, the ICANN Board and org actively engaged with the GAC, the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) member countries, and the Amazon corporation to find a mutually acceptable path forward for the .AMAZON applications.
In March 2019, the ICANN Board passed a resolution calling on the ACTO member states and the Amazon corporation to take four weeks in a last effort to work in good faith toward a mutually acceptable solution regarding the .AMAZON applications. Despite their efforts, this did not result in a mutually acceptable solution between the ACTO countries and the Amazon corporation. Further, ICANN did not receive a mutual request to extend the deadline.
On 15 May 2019, the Board passed a resolution directing ICANN org to proceed with processing the .AMAZON applications. The Amazon corporation submitted its proposed Public Interest Commitments (PICs) via the Application Change Request Mechanism process on 5 June 2019.
Following this, the Colombian Government filed Reconsideration Request 19-1 on 15 June 2019, which was then considered by the BAMC. The BAMC recommended that the Reconsideration Request be denied, and the Board adopted that recommendation on 8 September 2019.
The next set of steps included publishing the Amazon corporation PICs via the New gTLD Application comment forum. The comment period ended 12 October 2019 and the ICANN org reviewed and carefully considered the comments. While this process does not include a staff report analysis, ICANN reviewed and considered each comment and determined the applications may proceed in the contracting process.
The ICANN66 GAC Communiqué – Montréal, Canada in November 2019 further summarizes discussions that have taken place with the GAC.
Prior to delegating a TLD to the root zone, Pre-Delegation Testing is required to ensure that an applicant has the capacity to operate a new gTLD in a stable and secure manner. Pre-Delegation Testing elements address, for example, Domain Name Server (DNS) operational infrastructure and registry system operations. In addition to the Pre-Delegation Testing, every new registry must demonstrate it has established operations in accordance with the technical and operation criteria described in the Applicant Guidebook.
Although it has been a long process, we have taken these actions because of the procedures set forth by the multistakeholder model and as identified in the ICANN Bylaws.
