They have begun talking about another round of new gTLDs at ICANN, and the transcript (pdf) makes for interesting reading--even ICANN insiders admit the dysfunction and systemic failures within ICANN relating to the new gTLDs, here's an excerpt--
"We keep on adding things as - before I get to speak. On the 19 policy issues that were identified by the GNSO, it's not necessarily the fact that we forgot any or we got the policy wrong, it's those policy recommendations were written in such a generic unspecific way - and somewhat deliberately partly because we didn't want to spend another several years working on that PDP, the interpretation of them ended up being different than what we imagined.
"And, you know, yes from the point of view of that PDP it was implementation but clearly now we understand there were policy issues. And so, you know, Avri [Avri Doria – NCSG] in the chat said they [ICANN] did a horrible job of implementing it. Well, I guess horrible is a judgment call. But certainly they [ICANN] were given - staff was given a lot of latitude - staff and the community because we spent God knows how many years talking about it - but in retrospect clearly there were mistakes made.
"And if the policy had been more specific we might not have made those mistakes or at least they would have been deliberate mistakes. So it's not so much that we had the wrong ones or we did it wrong but we really are going to have to provide more guidance to the second round so we don't have some of the fiascos we had.
"The second point is, and Tijani alluded to that in terms of applicant support, but it's equally true in community applications. There was such a visceral fear of gaming [the system by new gTLD applicants] that all of these things, which could have made something easier for some - for applicants, the rules were made - the bar was set so high the rules were made so rigid that it almost guaranteed that no one would end up using that path."--Alan Greenberg - ALAC
source: ICANN Transcription
GNSO New gTLDs Subsequent Rounds Discussion Group
Monday 08 September 2014 at 14:00 UTC
UPDATE: Greenberg Selected as Next ALAC Chair - Alan Greenberg (see above), a long-time member of the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC), has been selected as the next ALAC Chair. Greenberg replaces Olivier Crépin-Leblond, who has served as ALAC Chair since December 2010.