closed Proposed Next Round Base gTLD Registry Agreement - Spec 14 (Variant TLDs)

Outcome

In total, five Public Comments were submitted by stakeholders from across the community on the proposed Specification 14, which is included in the proposed 2026 Base gTLD Registry Agreement (2026 Base RA) for Variant TLDs.

Commenters were requested to review the changes against the draft Specification 14 published during the second Public Comment proceeding on the 2026 Base RA and provide additional feedback. They were also asked to consider the updates to Specification 14 as part of implementing IDN EPDP Phase 1 Recommendations 7.4 and 7.5, as approved by the ICANN Board.

All Public Comments received were reviewed and considered by ICANN org.

What We Received Input On

As part of the New Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD) Program: 2026 Round, ICANN is preparing the 2026 Base gTLD Registry Agreement (RA), which outlines the rights and obligations of new gTLD registry operators. Once the ICANN Board approves the Registry Agreement for the 2026 round of the New gTLD Program, it will serve as the contractual document between successful new gTLD applicants and ICANN. Note that this draft is not final and is subject to ICANN Board consideration and approval. ICANN is opening a Public Comment proceeding on Specification 14 (Variant gTLDs) of the 2026 RA to seek input from the community, including potential 2026 applicants. 

Specification 14 is based on the outputs of the Final Report on the new gTLD Subsequent Procedures Policy Development Process (Final Report) and Phase 1 Final Report on the Internationalized Domain Names Expedited Policy Development Process (IDN EPDP Phase 1), the ICANN Consensus Policy that introduces variant gTLDs. Specification 14 was part of the first two Public Comment proceedings on the 2026 RA, with Section 2.13 of Specification 14 bracketed pending Board consideration of Recommendations 7.4 and 7.5 from the IDN EPDP Phase 1 Final Report. 

This proposed updated draft of Specification 14 follows the recent ICANN Board resolution on IDN EPDP Phase 1 Recommendations 7.4 and 7.5, directing ICANN org to incorporate the remaining two recommendations into the existing implementation work, which includes the 2026 RA and specifically, updates to Specification 14. Updates to Specification 14 include:

• Section 2.13: Fees implementing IDN EPDP Phase 1 Recommendations 7.4 and 7.5 regarding fixed fees, transactional fees, and RPM Access Fees; 
• Section 2.14: Reservations for Registry Operations following the changes proposed in Section 3.2 of Specification 5 and how that change applies to variant TLDs; 
• Section 2.16: Amendments and Waivers outlining that the registry operator shall have one (1) vote for the TLD set. 

This Public Comment proceeding is intended to present the incremental changes to Specification 14 as compared to the second Public Comment of the 2026 RA for additional feedback.

Background

On 18 February 2021, the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) approved the Final Report and transmitted it to the ICANN Board for consideration as required by the ICANN Bylaws. The Final Report presents final recommendations, implementation guidance, and other outputs relating to the next round of new gTLDs.

In the 16 March 2023 Board Resolution, the ICANN Board directed ICANN to begin the implementation of a subset of outputs from the Final Report. Subsequently, an Implementation Review Team (SubProIRT) was formed and has been assisting ICANN with implementation of the outputs since first meeting on 16 May 2023. The Board has since taken additional action on further subsets of outputs from the Final Report, including on 10 September 2023, 26 October 2023, 8 June 2024, and 14 November 2024.

Consistent with the outputs of the Final Report (Topic 36), the proposed 2026 RA maintains the structure of a base gTLD Registry Agreement with specifications detailing technical and operational requirements. ICANN org used the revised Base gTLD RA that was approved by the ICANN Board on 21 January 2024 as the starting point, which retains all global amendments to date, including the latest DNS Abuse Global Amendment and the Global Amendment to add Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP). 

In addition to maintaining the structure of the base gTLD Registry Agreement, the proposed 2026 RA incorporates Specification 12 (Community TLDs) and Specification 13 (.BRAND TLDs). The 2026 RA will also include Specification 14, outlining the contractual obligations for registry operators with variant TLDs. 

While ICANN discussed this version of Specification 14 with the SubPro IRT. ICANN encourages feedback from all parts of the ICANN community, including potential new gTLD applicants in the next round.

Supporting Information