gTLD	Full Legal Name	E-mail suffix	Detail
.desi	Desi Networks LLC	desinetwork.in	View

DESI Networks LLC, (the Company) has carefully examined (including S.W.O.R.D testing) the applied-for string “DESI” and found that deployment of it would not cause adverse operational, rendering or general user-confusion due to visual similarity with existing TLDs⁄ISO3166 lists⁄ICANN reserved list of names and list of ineligible strings. The string consists of ASCII letters and is a valid hostname having at least three and less than 63 ASCII characters. The label is therefore in compliance with the string requirements set forth in the Applicant Guidebook (Applicant Guidebook, page 64, section: 2.2.1.3.2 “String Requirements”) and with all technical standards such as but not limited to RFC 1035, RFC 2181, RFC 952, RFC 1123, and RFC 3696.

Although the applied for string is pure ASCII characters, the applicant is aware that it may need to mitigate inter alia such issues, as discussed on the “TLD Universal Acceptance” session at the Costa Rica ICANN Meeting on Wed, 14 March 2012. (http:⁄⁄costarica43.icann.org⁄meetings⁄sanjose2012⁄presentation-tld-universal-acceptance-14mar12-en.pdf) such as:

- Validity checks of TLDs based on either a hard coded list (may not be updated with all new gTLDs) or on a length check (i.e. maximum three characters
- Name conversion in various applications and browsers
- User acceptance. Some websites⁄applications may refuse user acceptance of users entering a new gTLD not accepted by the website⁄application
- Email clients validating on length on TLDs on by applying an outdated list of TLDs may also cause problems for this new gTLD, as valid email addresses may not be accepted

Websites and Search Engines   such as, but not limited to, Google, Yahoo! may refuse to offer services such as advertising, if they validate email addresses and valid domain names based on outdated definitions of TLDs, or simply refuse to add new gTLDs to their lists. Mobile browsers may also not be updating their lists of valid TLDs, as live DNS look ups, may be considered costly or in adequate by the providers.


A. Actions to mitigate or solve these issues

As the TLD is longer than 3 characters, it is understood that some issues concerning usage of DOT DESI in online forms may occur from time to time. The Company will work towards enabling general global acceptance for not just this TLD but all others as well. DESI Networks LLC will ensure that all known websites expecting to use DOT DESI will be communicated with concerning this issue and we will make all our own online forms available to accept all ICANN TLDs per the IANA list.

DESI Networks LLC has decided not to pursue 2nd Level IDN functionality at this time.

gTLD	Full Legal Name	E-mail suffix	Detail
.merck	Merck KGaA	bettinger.de	View

We have examined the applied-for string “MERCK” and found that deployment of it would not cause adverse operational, rendering, or general user-confusion. We performed a S.W.O.R.D test, and have not found visual similarity to any existing TLDs, names on ISO3166 lists, or the ICANN reserved list of names and list of ineligible strings. As the string consists entirely of ASCII letters and is a valid hostname having at least three and less than 63 characters, the ASCII label is therefore in compliance with the string requirements set forth in the Applicant Guidebook (AGB, p. 64, section: 2.2.1.3.2 “String Requirements”), and with all technical standards including but not limited to RFC 1035, RFC 2181, RFC 952, RFC 1123, and RFC 3696. It is possible that, in general, some software applicants may have difficulty dealing with new TLD strings. The applicant is aware of its responsibility to seek to mitigate and solve, inter alia, such issues as discussed at the “TLD Universal Acceptance” session at the ICANN Meeting on March 14, 2012 (http:⁄⁄costarica43.icann.org⁄meetings⁄sanjose2012⁄presentation-tld-universal-acceptance-14mar12-en.pdf). We are aware of the following issues:

- Validity checks of TLDs based on either a hard coded list or on a length check (i.e. max. three characters)
- Name conversion in various applications and browsers. Based on wrong definitions or outdated lists of TLDs, some applications may not convert this new gTLD to links
- User acceptance. Some websites⁄applications may refuse user acceptance of users entering a new gTLD not accepted by the website⁄application
- Email clients validating on length on TLDs on by applying an outdated list of TLDs may also cause problems for this new gTLD, as valid email addresses may not be accepted
- Websites and search engines such as Google and Yahoo! may refuse to offer services such as advertising, if they validate email addresses and valid domain names based on outdated definitions of TLDs, or simply refuse to add new gTLDs to their lists
- Mobile browsers may also not be updating their lists of valid TLDs, as live DNS look ups may be considered costly or in adequate by the providers

Actions to mitigate or solve these issues:

As the TLD is longer than 3 characters, it is understood that some issues concerning usage of the TLD in online forms will exist. We will take full responsibility for any such issues and will work to ensure that this TLD receives global acceptance. We will contact websites should we notice acceptance issues, and we will monitor acceptance of the TLD by the major search engines and major social networking sites, and so on. We will ensure that all our own available online forms will be able to accept all TLDs per the IANA list. We will work with ICANN in our on-going effort on this subject both for IDN and ASCII TLDs.

For second-level IDN issues see response to Q44.