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

Prototypical answer:

Firmdale, the Applicant, will be bound to uphold the GAC advice as this will be incorporated in its Registry Agreement with ICANN under Specification 5.

It is Firmdale’s policy to prohibit all Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) referenced country designations and territories from usage by Firmdale as country designations and third parties will likewise be prohibited from registering any of these names. The TLD .firmdale registry will be a single registrant TLD open only to the Applicant’s assigns, affiliates and subsidiaries.

As to how this will be implemented, Firmdale advises that all such geographical names will be “reserved” and “locked” at the registry level to prevent unauthorised usage. In accordance with the guidelines two and three character registrations will be permissible for alternative uses provided they bear no references to the countries or territories which they represent. Any such two or three character domain shall have an obvious reference to a legitimate business of the Applicant, Firmdale hotels and not be used to designate or reference any countries or recognised territories.

The list of geographical names includes:
(1)The short form (in English) of all country and territory names contained on the ISO 3166-1 list, as updated from time to time, 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;
(2) 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
(3) 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;

The Registry will not be releasing these names to any of the governments. Should any government have any objections the means for contact and policies will be displayed on the Registry website.

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