By Nick Patience

As promised, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) released its accreditation guidelines on Friday for those companies wishing to enter the soon-to-be-competitive domain name registrar market. There is an initial test run between April and June with just five registrars and then, provided the test is successful, the market will be opened to all companies that meet the requirements.

ICANN president Mike Roberts says the published accreditation guidelines have been simplified from the draft version posted for comment last month. There were about 50 comments received in all and he says ICANN’s staff and its lawyers at Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue went through an simplified the guidelines, thought there no major changes from the draft version.

The one issue still outstanding however, is the thorny question of what some in the community say amounts to a tax on registrars – but whether that’s a pejorative term is open to question in this case. Registrar will pay ICANN a small fee based on the number of registrations they have processed each month. The actual amount has still not been fixed, but it will be no more than $1 per name and Roberts expects it to be finalized by early April.

One change that should be noted is that the liquid capital requirement has been reduced to $70,000 from $100,000 in the draft. Companies will also generally need to show at least $500,000 liability insurance cover, which was the amount in the draft version. However, following the changes, companies that cannot meet those requirements can still become registrars if they can prove to ICANN that they can show that they can compensate for losses caused by any mistakes they might make mistake, or that they have access to sufficient working capital in the form of letters of credit or a guaranteed bank loan.

Applications can be submitted now for those companies wishing to be part of the test phase of the shared registration system. the application fee for that is $2,500 and applications must be with ICANN by March 29. Those chosen will be contacted by April 12 and the testbed program will start April 26. Those companies wishing to be considered for normal accreditation can also apply now and will receive notification from ICANN within 30 days of submitting their application. The fee is $1,000 and normal registration operations are scheduled to begin by June 25.

Next stop for ICANN is finalizing its annual budget for 1999- 2000. Roberts says he will draw up a draft that the board will review in late April and then post that to the ICANN web site for public review, probably at the beginning of May. That will give a three week period before the next ICANN board meeting, in Berlin some time between May 25 and 27. Accreditation guidelines are at http://www.icann.org