ICANN’s board today announced that there will be “strict separation of entities offering registry services and those acting as registrars. No co-ownership will be allowed.” However, they also said that if the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) came up with a compromise, the board would consider it.
The topic of separation between Registrar and Registry has been a big once since the separation of the .com TLD Registry from the Registrar took place. Without this separation, many successful Registrars today would not be here.
Keeping the separation in place is good news for current Registries, though disappointing for Registrars hoping to apply as a Registry for new TLDs.