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

Prototypical answer:

Life Covenant Church, Inc (LifeChurch.tv) is committed to protecting geographic names as required in Specification 5 of the Registry Agreement and based on the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) “Principles regarding new gTLDs.” The .church registry will continually review GAC communiqués and advice submitted to the ICANN board. GAC communiqués and advice shall be taken into consideration when creating and implementing policies for the .church registry.

Specification 5 of the Registry Agreement provides for the protection of geographic names by:
1. Reserving all names formed with two-character labels from initial registration within the .church registry and allowing for their release only after reaching an agreement with the applicable government and country-code manager.
2. Reserving all names contained within the following internationally recognized lists of country and territory names; (i) the short form (in English) of all country and territory names contained on the ISO 3166-1 list, (ii) the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names, Technical Reference Manual for the Standardization of Geographical Names, Part III Names of Countries of the World; and (iii) the list of United Nations member states in 6 official United Nations languages prepared by the Working Group on Country Names of the United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names. Names contained within these internationally recognized lists maybe released only after appropriate approval from the applicable government, review from the GAC, and approval by ICANN.

The .church registry will extend protection for geographic names by incorporating a Geographic Names Protection Time Period (GNPTP). The GNPTP shall (1) allow the GAC to identify geographic names of significance; (2) allow governments, public authorities, or IGOs of country’s participating in the GAC to identify geographic names of significance; (3) be available for a period of no less than 60 days; (4) occur prior to other registrations. Names submitted during the GNPTP shall be reviewed by LifeChurch.tv for inclusion at its discretion on the Geographic Names Protection List (GNPL). Names included on the GNPL will not be made available for registration. Names included on the GNPL shall remain unavailable for registration until such time as the entity which identified the geographic name for inclusion during the GNPTP provides written notice to the .church registry that the protected name may now be registered.

The .church registry shall provide a single point of contact to facilitate the reporting of potential abuses of registrations including geographic names. Upon being notified of a potential abusive registration the .church registry shall within a reasonable time review the registration for compliance with .church registry policies and respond accordingly. The .church registry’s policies shall prohibit a registrant from misrepresenting itself in any form including that of a government, or public authority.

A large number of churches, congregations, ministries, and associated service providers are focused on the needs of a particular people in a geographic area. Furthermore a large number of local and regional ministry alliances exist to unify outreach efforts and provide dialogue between churches, congregations, and ministries. These registrants identify themselves many times by incorporating or solely utilizing a geographic name for their registrations. The .church registry believes this to a valid use of a geographic name within a registration.

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