Longtime Industry Executive Appointed to Two High Profile Leadership Positions by the Primary Global Policy Body Responsible for Generic Top-Level Domains (“gTLDs”).
VIENNA, VA - October 28, 2021 – JJN Solutions, LLC, a leading provider of Internet, Intellectual Property and Entertainment legal and policy services, announced today that its Founder & CEO, Jeffrey J. Neuman has been appointed as the Generic Names Supporting Organization (“GNSO”) Liaison to the Operational Design Phase (“ODP”) for the implementation of subsequent rounds of new gTLDs. The GNSO is the primary structure within the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (“ICANN”) responsible for the development of policies for all gTLDs. In addition, Mr. Neuman was also reappointed to serve a second term as the GNSO’s liaison to the Governmental Advisory Committee (“GAC”).
Mr. Neuman was appointed to these two positions during the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) annual meeting held virtually this week from October 25 through October 28, 2021. As the ODP Liaison, he will be responsible for serving as the primary contact between ICANN staff and the GNSO Council on questions pertaining to the substance or intent of the GNSO Council recommendations.
Prior to serving in this role, Jeff was one of the two Co-Chairs of the multi-stakeholder working group responsible for the development of policies for subsequent rounds of new gTLDs. The working group, which had more than 250 members from around the world, held hundreds of meetings and spent thousands of hours over the past few years reviewing previous new gTLD rounds and examining improvements that could be made to promote competition in the domain name industry.
Mr. Neuman will also be serving a second term as the GNSO Liaison to the GAC who is responsible for serving as the primary point person between the two organizations. His role is to ensure that the advisory committee comprised of more than 150 national governments from around the world are kept up to date on all gTLD policy development processes, answering questions pertaining to GNSO activities, and encouraging participation by GAC members in the policy development processes.
“I am honored to represent the GNSO Council and serve the gTLD community in both of these important roles,” said Mr. Neuman. “I have long been an advocate for ICANN’s multi-stakeholder model and to its mission which includes the promotion of competition in the domain name industry. For far too long the domain name industry, civil society and the technical community have been reluctant to involve governments in the policy development process. My goal has always been to prove that it is only through the active participation of all stakeholders, including governments, that we can maintain a secure, resilient and robust Internet that is capable of serving its billions of users around the world.”
In serving as the newly created ODP Liaison, the JJN Solutions’ founder hopes to ensure that the design of the implementation for subsequent rounds of new gTLDs not only faithfully adheres to the policies recommended by the multi-stakeholder community, but also is done in a completely transparent manner to the community. Mr. Neuman added, “My role is an important but limited one. As a steward of the GNSO community, I will need to ensure that when new policy questions are raised, they are referred back to the GNSO community and that there is a timely response. There is clearly a demand for new gTLD application process to open as soon as possible, but it must be designed in an open and transparent manner in accordance with the policies set by the community. This is essential for the credibility of the program.”
The last round of new gTLDs occurred nearly a decade ago. More than 1,900 applications were received for open TLDs (eg., .photo, .club, .gay and .hiphop), restricted TLDs (eg., .pharmacy, .bank and .broadway), geographic TLDs (eg., .nyc, .vegas, .berlin, and .london) and brand TLDs (eg., .KPMG, .AWS, .Sky, and .Microsoft). With this next round we will likely see more brands apply for their own TLDs and hopefully more Internationalized TLDs (eg., 劇場 (Japanese for “theater”), כַּדוּרֶגֶל (Hebrew for “soccer”)) to establish a truly interoperable global Internet.
About JJN Solutions, LLC
JJN Solutions is a legal and policy consultancy advising client on domain name disputes, portfolio management, intellectual property, entertainment law, licensing, contract negotiations and brand protection. With nearly 25 years of experience in the domain name industry, JJN Solutions in unparalleled in its domain name legal and policy expertise. It represents all types of clients from small start-ups to large multi-national corporations. JJN Solutions works to ensure that your most important assets online are protected.
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Media contact: pr@jjnsolutions.com, +1.202.549.5079
Twitter: @JJNSolutions