Statement by Akram Atallah, COO
ICANN is targeting 22 May 2012 as the intended reopening date for the TLD Application System. It is anticipated that the system would remain open for five business days and close on 30 May. This takes account of the 28 May Memorial Day holiday in the United States.
We took TAS offline following a technical glitch that may have allowed some users to see some file names and user names of other users. We have seen no evidence that any TAS user intentionally did anything wrong in order to be able to see other users' information.
We have met our commitment to provide notice to all users on or before 8 May 2012 by sending out notifications today.
The large majority of users are unaffected by the glitch. We continue to review the extensive database of system logs and system traffic, and any new and relevant information that emerges from this analysis will be shared with applicants in a timely way.
Even as late as yesterday, 7 May 2012, our packet-level research uncovered a new set of instances (in addition to those previously announced) where another applicant might have viewed a set of system-generated file names. It is possible that further analysis will also show that some of the parties that we have notified were not affected, but notice was provided out of an abundance of caution.
We thank everyone for your patience and apologize for the inconvenience the delay has caused.