ICANN has issued a statement expanding on yesterday’s decision to extend the gTLD application window. Worryingly, it notes that a technical glitch “allowed a limited number of users to view some other users' file names and user names in certain scenarios” in the online application system.

The decision to take the TLD Application System offline until Tuesday due to a “technical issue”, and extend the application window until 23:59 UTC on Friday April 20 2012 came out of the blue and resulted in speculation over the cause of the delay. On Domain Incite, Kevin Murphy received confirmation from ICANN that the incident was not the result of hacking and no application data had been lost.

While reassuring, in a statement posted today ICANN expanded on the problem: “We have learned of a possible glitch in the TLD application system software that has allowed a limited number of users to view some other users' file names and user names in certain scenarios. Out of an abundance of caution, we took the system offline to protect applicant data. We are examining how this issue occurred and considering appropriate steps forward."

The organisation intends to post updates on its website but, at present, detail is hard to come by – in particular how the problem came to light, how widespread it actually was and whether ICANN is able to identify those applicants who may have had their user and file names revealed.

WTR has approached ICANN for additional information and will update this blog as more details become available.