ICANN under fire as Verisign warns of rushed domain-name expansion

ICANN's big generic top-level domain (gTLD) rollout, planned for April 23, needs to be delayed because the system isn't ready, Verisign and others are warning – and ICANN itself has told The Register that the first gTLD domains won't come online until at least August.

"April is a launch date in the sense that it's a public launch, a media launch, an awareness-raising exercise – but we don't actually sign contracts on the 23rd," ICANN's VP of security Jeff Moss told us. "Timelines will be adjusted depending on when registry and clearing houses are ready. It's going to be August, I think, maybe."

Last week, Verisign issued a public letter and white paper going over some of the failings of the gTLD system as it stands. It cited problems with the Trademark Clearing House and Emergency Back End Registry Operator (EBERO) disaster-recovery system that were still not sorted out, and said that in some cases it would take three months or more to fix certification issues.