Author: Joanna Witt

Joanna Witt is a London-based freelance journalist and digital producer who has spent the majority of her career running high-profile websites for the BBC.

Having trained as a legal journalist, she went on to work on a number of trade publications, reporting on the advertising and marketing industry, and producing consumer health news for an online news agency.

She joined the BBC in 2003 and was staff for eight years, launching some of the corporation's most popular websites, many of which ran alongside live studio shows. As such she is particularly interested in the power of brands online and the nuts and bolts of producing successful and profitable sites.

She specializes in social media and has a strong interest in the power of SEO as the web develops. Joanna has a BA and an MA from Nottingham University.

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Transcript
24 March 2012
New gTLD Program Update

Ladies and gentlemen, we will be starting our next session, new gTLDs, program update, in two minutes. If you could kindly take your seats.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you would be kind enough to take your seats, we'd like to start our program.

All right. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you're not in this meeting to listen to it, there are lots of places to go and talk, so we are going to begin this meeting.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Kurt Pritz, senior vice president, ICANN.

KURT PRITZ: Good morning, everyone. So I'm just going to give us a second to, like, close the door, because I'm vain.

So I was listening to President Chinchilla's speech, and two points. One is that it's remarkable that people can be emotionally moved by a speech where they're reading the translation of it. Kind of remarkable.

And two, that she characterized the Internet as a "hope" rather than a "threat." And I think in our own small way, that's how we chose to characterize the new gTLD program.
Transcript
15 March 2012
GAC Discussion on New gTLDs (Part 2)

CHAIR – HEATHER DRYDEN: Hello again, everyone. If we can begin to take our seats again, we'll continue with our work.

Let's restart our meeting. So what I propose to do this afternoon is continue the discussion about new gTLDs. And then, at the very end, we have some GAC business to take care of. And we can go back into a
short closed session just to deal with those items. Regarding new gTLDs, let's see whether, at this point, we are able to begin exchanging about some of the topics that we just heard about and had questions
about before the break and see whether it's possible for us to formulate thoughts or the beginnings of advice that we might want to give on those topics that would go into our communique this week. We did
have a fair number of questions around process and timing for current elements. But I would like to see whether we're in a position to begin formulating on some advice on those same topics at this point. So we
can see how that develops.
Transcript
11 March 2012
GAC Discussion on New gTLDs

CHAIR – HEATHER DRYDEN: Good afternoon. We're going to start in about 10 minutes. We had a delay with identifying staff to brief us this afternoon unexpectedly. I'll explain later. So in about 10 minutes we'll begin. Okay?

CHAIR – HEATHER DRYDEN: Good afternoon, everyone, if we could begin our plenary session this afternoon. So apologies for the delay in beginning our session.

For those newcomers to the GAC, it is a bit of a tradition that we don't quite manage to start on time. But Kurt Pritz, who was going to be presenting to us a bit later, has fallen ill. So we've been trying to
identify staff that could provide us an update on new gTLDs. So a couple of staff will be coming to join us in about 15 minutes.

So let's take care of some business items before then. And then, when they arrive, we can move to that session.

So welcome, everybody, to Costa Rica. And, as usual, if we can begin with some introductions around the table. And then we will begin the proper session. So I'm looking to my right. If I can ask you to begin,
please.

(Introductions)
Story
8 March 2012
EBA asks ICANN to scrap dot-bank

The European Banking Authority (EBA) has written to ICANN to object to the potential new Internet extensions dot-bank and dot-fin, advising that the top-level domains be scrapped.

In a letter, the EBA said it was concerned about potential fraud and wants ICANN to reconsider the use of the two domains.

However, in response ICANN deflected any suggestion of intervention on its part and noted the new gTLD program doesn't "specifically bar the domain names ... but does provide multiple avenues for objection".

The EBA was established in 2010 and came into existence on 1 Jan 2011. It aims to protect banking customers across the EU.

It has taken on the responsibilities of Committee of European Banking Supervisors and promises to safeguard the stability of the financial system and the transparency of markets and financial products, and to protect depositors and investors.
Story
29 February 2012
We're taking on the Big Three: ARI's CEO talks gTLDs

Adrian Kinderis, CEO of Melbourne-based ARI Registry Services, says he expects his company to file more than 100 applications for top level domains by the time the ICANN application window closes in April.


Kinderis: A century

His prediction follows ARI's announcement that it has won the tender for dot-sydney, dot-melbourne and dot-victoria, and expects to sign more contracts over the next six weeks. "We're ramping up," he says. "We'd have liked the ramp up to be linear but that was a pipe dream and there's now a mad rush to the finish line."

The company signed 21 contracts in the first week after the application window opened but Kinderis says many large corporations had been holding back because of all the debate before the 12 January launch. "But once ICANN pulled the trigger they started mobilizing and now contracts are being signed." He says his company has lots of corporate clients such as StarHub in Singapore which recently announced it was using ARI.

Taking on the US giants