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Competition, Consumer Trust & Consumer Choice Review

Overview
Review Areas

News

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Overview

As part of its Affirmation of Commitments with the U.S. Department of Commerce and under ICANN Bylaws section 4.6 (d), ICANN has committed to conducting a regular review of how the New gTLD Program has impacted competition, consumer choice and consumer trust. An initial review by the Competition, Consumer Trust and Consumer Choice (CCT) Review Team was completed in September 2018. View CCT review team proceedings.

This review is to:

  • Determine the extent to which the introduction of new gTLDs has promoted competition, consumer choice and consumer trust in the DNS.
  • Assess the effectiveness of (a) the application and evaluation processes, and (b) safeguards put in place to mitigate issues.

The CCT Review Team published a draft report of recommendations for public comment in March 2017. A second public comment period was conducted in November 2017 to gather community input on new sections in the draft report pertaining to DNS abuse, costs to trademark holders, parking, and consumer choice. This feedback was incorporated into a final report which was approved by the CCT Review Team in September 2018. The report is now published for public comment until 27 November 2018 to inform Board action on the CCT's final recommendations. Per the Bylaws, within six months of receipt of the Final Report and Recommendations, the ICANN Board shall consider the report and public comments to determine whether to approve the recommendations. The Board will then direct implementation of the recommendations that were approved and provide written rationale for the decision if any recommendations are not approved

Review Areas

The CCT review team considered 66 metrics [PDF, 472 KB] recommended by an Implementation Advisory Group for consideration in reviewing the New gTLD Program. ICANN collected and published data related to these metrics, including statistics about domain name registries, registrars, registrations, navigation and rights protection mechanisms. View metrics.

In addition to aggregating existing data, ICANN commissioned studies on:

  1. Consumer awareness, perceived consumer choice, and experience and trust related to the Domain Name System.
  2. Pricing trends and other competition indicators in the global Domain Name System market.
  3. Technical safeguards developed for the New gTLD Program in mitigating various forms of DNS abuse.

To help the CCT review team assess the effectiveness of the New gTLD Program's application and evaluation processes, and safeguards put in place to mitigate abuse, ICANN collaborated with the community to generate reports on the following topics:

News Archive