LOS ANGELES - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) issued a Request for Information (RFI) to seek input from potential providers on the Dispute Resolution and the Appeal Procedures for the New Generic Top-Level Domains Program: Next Round, which is due to launch in April 2026, according to the official website of ICANN. 

The dispute resolution process is intended to afford certain parties an opportunity to advance objections based on four defined grounds against introducing certain new gTLDs into the Domain Name System.

This RFI will play a crucial role in gathering information on potential providers as well as input on current draft procedures. These rules (the ICANN Dispute Resolution Procedure and the ICANN Objection Appeal Procedure) will be published in the Applicant Guidebook.

This is a public RFI, which means that any prospective provider may participate. Thereafter, a separate public Request for Proposal (RFP) will be conducted in the first quarter of calendar year 2025 to perform a more comprehensive evaluation of potential providers to administer disputes arising from specific objection grounds.

Indications of interest should be emailed to dispute-resolution-service-provider-rfi@icann.org and provide the following information:

• Name of the organization
• Name of the contact
• Email address of the contact

Official responses to the RFI should be electronically submitted using ICANN's sourcing tool by 23:59 UTC on December 9, 2024. Access to this tool may be requested via the same email address.