Background
The Registry Service Provider (RSP) Evaluation Program is a part of ICANN's New Generic Top-Level Domains (New gTLD) Program: Next Round. The program is intended to reduce the cost and time involved in evaluating new gTLDs by separating the evaluation of the technical aspects of operating a gTLD from the application for the gTLD label. With the RSP Evaluation Program, RSPs will only be evaluated once regardless of the number of gTLDs to which they provide service.
The RSP Evaluation Program is the implementation of the policy recommendations under Topic 6: Registry Service Provider Pre-Evaluation of the Final Report on the New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Policy Development Process. This implementation was guided by the Subsequent Procedures Implementation Review Team (IRT). The following IRT meetings were specific to the RSP Evaluation Program:
Webinars
Future webinars regarding the RSP Program will be posted here.
Further Reading
The following information is available regarding some of the critical technical services provided to gTLDs by RSPs:
- Zone File Access (ZFA)
- Centralized Zone Data Service (CZDS)
- Trademark ClearingHouse (TMCH)
- Registration Reporting Interface (RRI)
- Registry Data Escrow (RDE)
- Monitoring System API Specification (MoSAPI)
- Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP)
- Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) Status Codes
- The Domain Name System (DNS)
- DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC)
- Root Zone Management (RZM) User Guide
- Operations Handbook for Registry Operators