I am delighted to report that we have now posted a proposed final draft of the New gTLD Registry Agreement. Similar to the proposed 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) that was posted for public comment on 22 April 2013, the ICANN community is now able to review and comment on this final draft before it is approved and adopted.
The proposed agreement is the result of several months of negotiations, formal community feedback, and meetings with various stakeholders and communities. Based on the community feedback during the ICANN 46 meeting in Beijing, ICANN and the Registry Agreement Negotiating Team maintained a consistent and swift pace to finalize the negotiations and bring the proposed terms into a final draft form, ready for community review and comment.
We have come a long way since February 2013 when we posted a proposed Revised New gTLD Registry Agreement for public comment. A new and highly spirited sense of mutual trust has catapulted us into a fresh atmosphere of collaboration, which in turn has led to a consistently more productive environment. The spirit of teamwork, productive dialogue and partnership that has underpinned this negotiation process is tremendously heartwarming, as it has allowed us to bring to fruition a robust contractual framework for the New gTLD Program.
On behalf of ICANN, I would like to sincerely thank the registry community for acting in good faith and with tremendous goodwill, making this last key step possible.