ICANN Board and staff anger community with unilateral action

ICANN staff and Board has upset large parts of its own organization and again raised concerns about its suitability to manage the domain name system with a series of decisions and "forecasts" regarding its trademark new gTLD program. Following a meeting earlier this month that was announced and saw trademark owners attempt to reopen a multi-year policy process to give themselves greater protections, some were stunned when ICANN appeared to signal it was prepared to change the rules to provide additional protections. At the same time, it also announced it was planning to extend protections on all domain names for IGOs, without waiting for the formal advice it has specifically requested from its own policy body, the GNSO, and following a surprise vote not to provide some of the additional protections by that same body.