Ready to launch? Who are you kidding?

Let’s forget for a second about the unpleasant tactics used by some to get their way in the long, drawn-out process to open up the top-level of the Internet.

And put to one side, the flurry of letters, Congressional hearings and all the other noisiness of the past months. Let’s also allow the past seven years of argument and debate to wash over us, as though it were a lifetime ago, with the end results now seemingly a foregone conclusion.

Now have a look at what there is, on paper, for the new gTLD program. It is due to open in just a few days. Is it ready to launch?

The answer is a resounding No, not by any sane person’s measure.

A series of six papers published at the weekend were specifically written by ICANN’s staff to assure their Board that everyone was fine, on schedule, up-to-date and ready-to-roll.

The reality is that each paper demonstrates the opposite: that there is far too much work still to be done; that ICANN has failed to do enough to pull in the agreed adjustments to the existing patchwork of rules and procedures; and that the organization is running headlong into yet another crisis of its own making.