gTDL Applications (Comparison)

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22 Describe proposed measures for protection of geographic names at the second and other levels in the applied-for gTLD

gTLD	Full Legal Name	E-mail suffix	Detail
.box	NS1 Limited	tld.asia	View

gTLD	Full Legal Name	E-mail suffix	Detail
.spa	Asia Spa and Wellness Promotion Council Limited	tld.asia	View

The Registry is committed to following the GAC advice and Specification 5 of the New gTLD Agreement in the protection of geographic names for registrations under the TLD.

More specifically, the Registry commits to:

a) Adopt, before the new gTLD is introduced, appropriate procedures for blocking, at no cost and upon demand of governments, public authorities or IGOs, names with national or geographic significance at the second level of the TLD.

b) Ensure procedures to allow governments, public authorities or IGOs to challenge abuses of names with national or geographic significance at the second level of the TLD

Building on the experience from .INFO and .ASIA in their handling of country and government related names, the Registry will develop and establish policies for:

1) obtaining and maintaining a list of names with national or geographic significance to be reserved (at no cost to governments) upon the demand of governments, public authorities or IGOs;

2) the process for registrants to apply for and for the Registry to obtain consent from the respective government, public authorities or IGOs in the releasing of such reserved geographic names; and

The procedures may be similar to the management of governmental reserved names for .ASIA (Section 3.4 of http:⁄⁄dot.asia⁄policies⁄DotAsia-Reserved-Names--COMPLETE-2007-08-10.pdf -- also attached for reference). In summary:

I) The Registry will adhere to the New gTLD Registry Agreement Specification 5 requirements regarding 2. Two-Character Labels as well as 5. Country and Territory Names;

II) Before the launch of the TLD, the Registry will also proactively reach out to governments around the world, especially through GAC members (and ccTLD managers where appropriate), to solicit from them their demand for reserving any names with national or geographic significance at the second level of the TLD;

III) The Registry will develop mechanisms and maintain a list of governmental reference contacts, especially through correspondence with GAC members and ccTLD managers where appropriate. The corresponding reference contact(s) will be contacted in case a registration request is received for a governmental reserved name. If the consent from the governmental contact is received, the registration request will be approved. The domain will nevertheless remain in the reserved names list so that in case the registration lapses, the domain will not be released into the available pool, but will require the same approval process to be registered.

IV) The Registry will maintain an ongoing process for adding and updating governmental reserved names as they are demanded by governments, public authorities or IGOs.

In accordance with Specification 5 of the New gTLD Registry Agreement, the registry operator must initially reserve all geographic names at the second level, and at all other levels within the TLD at which the registry operator provides for registrations.
ARI supports this requirement by using the following internationally recognised lists to develop a comprehensive master list of all geographic names that are initially reserved:

– The 2-letter alpha-2 code of all country and territory names contained on the ISO 3166-1 list, including all reserved and unassigned codes [http:⁄⁄www.iso.org⁄iso⁄support⁄country_codes⁄iso_3166_code_lists⁄iso-3166-1_decoding_table.htm].

– The short form (in English) of all country and territory names contained on the ISO 3166-1 list, including the European Union, which is exceptionally reserved on the ISO 3166-1 List, and its scope extended in August 1999 to any application needing to represent the name European Union [http:⁄⁄www.iso.org⁄iso⁄support⁄country_codes⁄iso_3166_code_lists⁄iso-3166-1_decoding_table.htm#EU].

– The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names, Technical Reference Manual for the Standardisation of Geographical Names, Part III Names of Countries of the World. This lists the names of 193 independent States generally recognised by the international community in the language or languages used in an official capacity within each country and is current as of August 2006 [http:⁄⁄unstats.un.org⁄unsd⁄geoinfo⁄ungegn%20tech%20ref%20manual_M87_combined.pdf].

– The list of UN member states in six official UN languages prepared by the Working Group on Country Names of the United Nations Conference on the standardisation of Geographical Names [http:⁄⁄unstats.un.org⁄unsd⁄geoinfo⁄UNGEGN⁄docs⁄9th-uncsgn-docs⁄econf⁄9th_UNCSGN_e-conf-98-89-add1.pdf].

Names on this reserved list in ARI’s registry system are prevented from registration.

The following applies to all Domain Names contained within the registry’s reserved list:
– Attempts to register listed Domain Names will be rejected.
– WhoIs queries for listed Domain Names will receive responses indicating their reserved status.
– Reserved geographic names will not appear in the TLD zone file.
– DNS queries for reserved domain names will result in an NXDOMAIN response.

Furthermore, the Registry will actively participate in the development of appropriate process and policies for governments, public authorities or IGOs to challenge abuses of names with national or geographic significance. As an important stakeholder in the Registry, DotAsia Organisation (through Namesphere) will be supporting the efforts as well. DotAsia has been a pioneer of protective measures for new gTLDs, especially in its handling of governmental reserved names and its engagement with different stakeholders to develop rapid suspension policies, which provided part of the genesis of what is now standardized for new gTLDs as the URS (Uniform Rapid Suspension) process. Similar administrative processes may be explored and developed for supporting challenge processes for abuses of names with national or geographic significance.

Special Coincidental Considerations

In addition to the GAC advice and Specification 5, and following from the discussions in #20d and #20e D) Enforcement: based on the research as described in #20d, we recognize that there is coincidental usage of the string “spa” in other contexts beyond its predominant meaning. For completeness in mitigating against abusive usage of the .spa TLD based on such coincidental usage, the Registry will put in place 3 key measures to address potential concerns.

a. Reserved Names List

In addition to ICANN and geographical reserved names lists, upon the approval from ICANN for the .spa TLD, the Registry will proactively reach out to the Town of Spa in Belgium (http:⁄⁄www.spa-info.be⁄) as well as the Italian Chambers of Commerce (http:⁄⁄www.infocamere.it⁄) who is responsible for “Società Per Azioni” (i.e. S.p.A.) registrations, to study whether additional reserved names would be appropriate at the .spa TLD.

This will serve to ensure that the introduction of the .spa TLD will not inadvertently negatively impact the coincidental communities where the string “spa” may carry a meaning. Where appropriate additional reserved names will be included, for which activation will require special conditions to be met.

The activation process can follow a similar mechanism described above for the activation of governmental reserved names:

i) For names corresponding to the Town of Spa, the same mechanism can be used, where the consent from the corresponding government is to be sought before accepting the registration;

ii) For names related to registered “Società Per Azioni” (i.e. S.p.A.), the Registry will verify whether the registrant for the name corresponds with the Italian Chambers of Commerce (http:⁄⁄www.infocamere.it⁄) database. If the information agrees, the registration is accepted.

b. Special Sunrise Considerations

Similarly, the appropriateness of additional Sunrise considerations specifically for entities from the town of Spa in Belgium and registered “Società Per Azioni” (i.e. S.p.A.) would be explored. Such considerations will, if found appropriate, will be incorporated into the Sunrise process (see further details in #29). In the study, the Registry will also work closely with the selected Trademark Clearing House (TMCH) to see if such verification and registration processes can be procured through a similar process.

If such Sunrise phase is included, a similar addition, as the consent process described above in a. Reserved Names List, to the verification process could be implemented.

c. Claims & Notification Mechanism

Finally, a claims and notification mechanism, similar to the standard trademarks claims service as described in the Applicant Guidebook, will also be considered and discussed with the town of Spa and with the Italian Chambers of Commerce. The possibility of a two way notification process may also be explored (i.e. both for when a “.spa” domain is registered which may conflict with a registered “S.p.A.” registration as well as vice versa for a newly registered “S.p.A.” that may conflict with a registered .spa domain).

The Registry will also work closely with the selected Trademark Clearing House (TMCH) to see if such processes can be procured through a similar process as the standard trademark claims service.