We have been saying for quite sometime that ICANN has not committed on how what its going to do with the surplus from the new gTLD program and today at the ICANN meeting in Durban ICANN confirmed it.

Speaker at the meeting of the ICANN Board and Governmental Advisory Council (GAC) Steve Crocker Chairman of the Board of ICANN stated:

“Although there’s a lot of money that’s been raised, there’s also a projected use of those funds and one of the things that we take very seriously, and i have spoken quite vigorously about, is that, in particular, because there’s a lot of money involved, that we needed to be extra careful in accounting for it, and reporting on that
and we have, for now some time, segregated the funds and reported separately on that. ”

“If and when there is a surplus from that program, we’ve also spoken quite vigorously in the past, and will continue to do so, that we’ll make a separate determination of what to do with those surpluses. and by surpluses.

I’m talking about there may be monies that are left over from the use of the fees or they could be auction income, some people make a sharp distinction between those, I’m putting all of those together in what I’m addressing here.

So the picture at the moment is that there is not a lot of money left over, but if there were, we would go through a distinction process for what to do with it and I have no bias or prediction as to what the answer would be.

It could be that they could be applied for in the second round to help developing countries, but it could be they could be applied in a variety of other ways. there’s a, as you might imagine, a long list of ideas that have been presented and possible petitioners.

The the CEO of ICANN Fadi Chehade added:

“As the debate carries on about surplus potential surplus, no surplus, we think it is wise in parallel with that for us to start the community conversation on what is the public responsibility framework of ICANN and if so, how does it manifest itself?

what do we do?

what should we be engaged in, if at all?

and how do we make these activities really a service to our mission without leaving our mission, so therefore important to stay within our remit.”