Summary

  • ICANN selected PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services LLC to provide mandatory background screening for its 2026 new gTLD round; the review reaches the applying organization and people named in its control structure.
  • The Guidebook keeps screening information tied to its eligibility criteria out of public view, while retaining clarification and extended-evaluation steps and ICANN’s authority over application progression.

ICANN’s 15 October announcement makes the screening provider visible. The harder governance question sits one layer below the announcement: who and what will be examined, which applicants may receive a narrower review, and what can be checked publicly when the underlying evidence is private?

ICANN says it has entered an agreement with PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services LLC, or PwC, to provide background-screening services for the New gTLD Program: 2026 Round. The screening is a mandatory part of applicant evaluation. It is intended to establish whether applicants meet eligibility criteria before they operate a new generic top-level domain. The appointment is not evidence that any screening has been completed or that any applicant has passed or failed.

The subject is wider than the company name

The Applicant Guidebook requires information about the legal establishment of the applying entity and identifies directors, officers, partners and major shareholders, as well as an ultimate parent or people who control the applicant. Screening criteria apply at both organizational and individual levels. They include good standing and specified categories of conduct, among them certain financial or corporate-governance crimes, regulatory discipline involving dishonesty, and patterns of cybersquatting.

The criteria have different scopes and time limits; “background screening” is not a free-standing license to investigate anything about an applicant.

The Guidebook also recognizes that the evidence available can vary by jurisdiction and data-protection law. Applicants are responsible for ensuring that personal or entity data they submit can lawfully be shared. ICANN may ask them to demonstrate compliance, including consent where required. Those provisions make the process a cross-border data-governance problem as well as an eligibility test.

A market-status path, not a blanket waiver

Publicly traded corporations in good standing on one of the world’s 25 largest exchanges may be subject to more limited screening. The Guidebook bases the exchange list on domestic market capitalization reported before the round and explains the lighter path through the due diligence and continuing oversight associated with exchange listing.

That is a policy choice about which institutions can stand in for some of the screening work. The text says “may be subject to more limited” review; it does not create a universal exemption. Nor should the screening provision be confused with the separate Top 25 applicant profile in the financial and operational evaluation. The boundary matters because a listed corporation, an affiliated entity and a privately held applicant can present different evidence without changing the underlying question of eligibility.

Public rules, protected evidence

The Guidebook draws a narrow public/private line. Names and positions of the individuals included in an application are published. Other information collected about them is not. ICANN says information shared in the background-screening process that relates to the eligibility criteria will not be publicly disclosed. At the same time, ICANN may consider relevant application comments when they comply with local law.

This does not make the whole process invisible. The public can read the criteria and the formal steps, but it cannot independently re-run a named person’s screen from the public record. That distinction protects personal information; it also means legitimacy cannot be inferred from the public availability of the provider’s name alone.

The public RFP overview sets out what ICANN sought from a provider: Pass/No Issues or Warning/Issues Found determinations with supporting rationale, documented methodology, secure handling of personal data, and procedures intended to apply the criteria consistently. Those are statements in the RFP overview, not proof of every term in the executed agreement or of performance to date.

The decision is also split. The provider conducts the review and returns results; ICANN reserves the right to approve or deny an application’s progression. If questions arise, the Guidebook allows clarifying questions and an Extended Evaluation. Applicants are asked to answer clarifying questions within 21 days; they may request an Extended Evaluation when they do not meet the criteria and have 21 days to provide requested information. That is a defined opportunity to clarify or supplement the record, not a separately described independent appeal.

The practical public test is therefore procedural. Are the eligibility rules and the Top 25 boundary applied consistently across jurisdictions? Can applicants correct incomplete or inconsistent records before a consequential decision? Does ICANN retain control over the final progression decision? A privacy-respecting system need not publish personal dossiers. It does need public rules clear enough to explain the boundary and protected controls strong enough to make the private layer credible.

Sources

  1. ICANN announces 2026 Round background screening services provider, 15 October 2026
  2. 2026 Round Applicant Guidebook, Module 6, especially §6.1
  3. ICANN RFP Project Overview — 2026 Round Background Screening Services, 5 November 2025