When it comes to applying for a Geographic (GEO) New gTLD, The Second draft of ICANN’s Guidebook makes it pretty clear that you better either do it with the underlying jurisdiction or their blessing in writing.
We all know that the government of cities of New York (.nyc), Paris (.Paris) and Berlin (.Berlin) were at the forefront of pushing from the new gTLD’s to be apporved as they already have plans for launch of these extension and are counting on the funds they will generate to help fill the coffers of the respective cities.
But lets say my good friend Elliot SIlver who owns Burbank.com or the Castello brothers, frequent contributors to this blog, that own PalmSprings.com, wanted to get their own new gTLD extension for the same area their .com covers.
That’s going to be a no-go unless they either partner up with the respective jurisdiction or get a waiver of interest from the jurisdiction saying that they don’t want the extension and don’t mind if someone else takes it (good luck).
Simply put, ICANN has set up separate rules for Geo TLD extensions.
According to the Gude book:
“”ICANN will review all gTLD applications to make sure the interests of governments or public authorities in Country or Territory names, as well as other types of place names.””
This means that if you apply for any new gTLD, ICANN will summit each application to a specal committe which will determine if the proposed extension might be considered a Geo domain even if you didn’t intend it to be so.
For example maybe you wanted a .mia extension for family for solider missing in action to use.
That would probably we found to be a Geo extension and fall within these special rules in the review committee.
This committee in that case would kick the application back to you and tell you its a Geo domain extension in their opinion, and require you to get permission from the city of Miami to give up their rights to the extension and support your use.
“””The following types of applications are considered geographical names and must be accompanied by
documentation of support or non-objection from the relevant government(s) or public authority(ies):
“”An application for any string that is a meaningful representation of a country or territory. A
meaningful representation includes a representation of the country or territory name in any language.””
“”A string is deemed a meaningful representation of a country or territory name if it is:
The name of the country or territory; or
Part of the name of the country or territory denoting the country or territory; or
A short-form designation for the name of the country or territory that is recognizable and
denotes the country or territory.
An application for any string that is an exact match of a sub-national place name, such as a county,
province, or state.
An application for any string that is a representation, in any language, of the capital city
name of any country or territory;
An application for a city name, where the applicant declares that it intends to use the gTLD
for purposes associated with the city name.
An application for a string which represents a continent or UN region appearing on the “Composition of macro geographical (continental) regions, geographical sub-regions, and selected economic and other groupings”
In the case of an application for a string which represents a continent or UN region, documentation of support, or non-objection, will be required from a substantial number of the relevant governments and/or public authorities associated with the continent or the UN region.
An applied-for gTLD string that falls into any the above categories is considered to represent a geographical name (GEO).
In the event of any doubt, it is in the applicant’s interest to consult with relevant governments and public authorities and enlist their support or non-objection prior to submission of the application, in order to preclude possible objections and pre-address any ambiguities concerning the string and applicable requirements.
It is the applicant’s responsibility to:
1. identify whether its applied-for gTLD string falls into any of the above categories; and
2. determine the relevant government(s) or public authority(ies); and
3. identify which level of government support is required.
The requirement to include documentation of support for certain applications does not preclude or exempt
applications from being the subject of objections on community grounds, under which applications may be rejected based on objections showing substantial opposition from the targeted community.
The documentation of support or non-objection from the relevant government or public authority should include a signed letter of support or non-objection from the minister with the portfolio responsible for domain name administration, ICT, foreign affairs or the Office of the Prime Minister or President of the relevant jurisdiction.
The letter must clearly express the government’s or public authority’s support or non-objection for the applicant’s application and demonstrate the government’s or public authority’s understanding of the string being requested and intended use.
ICANN is basically putting all Geo domains, now and forever, in the hands of government. In the US, don’t we have that already? Its called the .gov extension, and it is only avaliable by use of the federal government.
However this proposal is far more reaching as it applies not just to every state and city in the US, but every country city around the world, every City, County, Provence, or Region.
Why has ICANN given all of the possible new Geo gTLD’s and placed them in the sole control of the respective jurisdictions?
Sure I understand and would agree with giving a jurisdiction preference in competing Geo applications.
But to give such jurisdictions absolute control over possible Geo extension seems inherently unfair.
If a jurisdiction wants to apply for its own gTLD, god bless, but if they don’t have the interest to do so, why give them veto power over private industry from doing so?
Next problem included in the defination of a GEO domain is,”geographical sub-regions, and selected economic and other groupings.”
What does this mean? “selected economic and other groupings”.
I don’t know.
Do you?
ICANN may not even know, since among the hundreds of pages the make up the guide book and attachments thereto, I cannot find a discussion, or even an example of what this might mean or include.
Would an extension like .wallsteet, that someone might want to create for the financial community fall within this section?
Maybe.
I certainly could make the argument that .wallstreet is a “select economic grouping” having a Geo component.
How about the “wine country” or the region in France which produces champagne?
What if you wanted to set up .champagne for that industry. Is champagne a “select economic grouping”, as it often is referred to that region of France where French, but not all champagne is produced? (yes I also know its a city in Illinois, that another problem discussed below).
Would you need the permission of the region to do such and extension, and if so, it appears you would have to get the permission of the majority of the jurisdictions that comprise the “champagne country” as it is called, an high improbable task
The possibilities of what might fall within “”select economic grouping” are endless.
All you can do at this point if the final rules stay as they are, is pony up your $185k and find out.
Don’t worry because if you application is denied as being a Geo, whether intended or not, during after the initial review it looks like you will get $65K back, so it will only cost you $120K to find out.
Enough of that, lets looks at another problem.
Springfield.
Yes all Simpsons lovers will know immediately that there are many cities named Springfield. If you will recall during release of the Simpsons movie a contest was held to determine which Springfield would be named as the “real” Springfield for the movie.
What if multiple cities with the same name apply for their cities gTLD?
It appears they get to go through the same process as all other applicants do.
Come to an agreement, which is impossible to go in any logical manner when it comes to a Geo extension or go through the auction process discussed yesterday in our post.
So the good citizens of these cities would have to pony up their tax money, and give it to ICANN to be the high bidder in an auction against other cities and their taxpayers. Once again, let’s be reminded that in the auction format, that you can only bid as much as you have deposited with ICANN. So each city would have to go to the taxpayers and cough up hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of dollars just to place them into ICANN account so they could bid for their extension.
Sounds good, especially in these economic times when many city and state governments are broke.
I can hear it the city hall meeting now. Good citizens we have to raise your property tax 1% so we can raise money to have bidding capital in applying for our domain extension.
Yeah right.
All of these problems and issues are additional reasons why this second draft are woefully deficient.
I know the response from ICANN already.
If you have questions fill out the 30 word limit question form and ask.
Comment on the draft. (even though they disregarded 99% of the comments objecting to the lifting of price caps received on the first draft)
But why should we have to do ICANN work?
Are we going to get some of the tens of millions funds, or maybe hundreds of millions ICANN will receive for helping them put together a proper, well thought out, fair and logical document?
No
It’s ICANN’s job to get it right.
They have not.
“are counting on the funds they will generate to help fill the coffers of the respective cities.”
this made me think of what has been happening near me…Chicago has sold parking meter management because they couldnt handle it…the toll roads have been sold because gov couldnt handle it and on and on.
No gov will be able to manage an extention…and make $$$ with it.
Tim
Read this:
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/02/16/2009-02-16_city_politicians_eye_nyc_domain_to_gener.html“
Michael and I have no interest in owning dotPalmSprings, dotNashville or dotLagunaBeach. Even in partnership with a city, the logistics would be a nightmare (and the one thing I love about this business is the lack of stress). Furthermore, judging by the way that NY politician feels about dotNYC’s potential, the local governments will have dollar signs in their eyes with ridiculous expectations. And if the money doesn’t start rolling in, guess who’ll they’ll blame?
But there’s a marketing dilemma these cities should consider before they jump in headfirst and invest in these city TLDs. Politicians are convinced that civic pride will triumph and everyone will immediately get in line for their city TLD. Not so fast. Even though some may want their city extension, many businesses will see it as too provincial.
Regardless, I believe that any new generic or geodomain gTLD will push the value of that same word’s dotCom through the roof. In other words, Sean Miller’s NYC.com will benefit greatly from the proposed dotNYC.
David
As usual I find myself agreeing with you on all fronts. I know you guys have no interest in applying for a gTLD for any of the .com’s you own, but you should have the right to if the city doesn’t want it.
Why do you have to make the city your partner if they have no interest in sponsoring .palmsprings?
The real purpose of writing today’s post was to point out all the nightmarish problems for:
1. Cities who might really want their own TLD.
2. The patently unfairness of immediately granting only governments the right to own a “Geo” TLD.
3. The broad language in the Guidebook which expands the definition of what many of us consider to be a Geo domain, and thereby giving government control of those extensions as well.
4. The loose, unexplained language in the Guide Book, that may catch non-intended Geo TLD’s into being immediately rejected at a $120K cost to the applicant. ($185K less the $65K refunded)
5. ICANN’s plan to make taxpayers of jurisdictions, pay up, and pay upfront, for the right to bid in an auction format, in a world where most cities are broke, out of cash, while ICANN has so much money already in the bank that they were able to go out an blow $5 Million gambling in the stock market.
5. Further demonstrate how poorly ICANN’s whole gTLD plan is laid out and further proof of why it should be rejected in whole.
Yes, I posted above because I’m agree strongly with your points. The bottom line is that I’m not sure why ICANN is doing this because the negatives far outweigh the positives. I believe that if the City of New York wants dotNYC they should have it, but that is not the basic message coming across from its proponents. It’s starting to sound more like an open call for anyone who can afford a TLD and survive the ICANN registration process.
We have a friend in the Palm Springs area who applied for dotKIDS a while ago. He has the money and is an excellent (at the time he owned a very successful ISP). In other words, this guy knows the business and had the infrastucture to pull it off.
He was turned down because ICANN felt there wasn’t a need at the time for dotKIDS. It had nothing to do with any legalities or challanges. ICANN simply felt it wasn’t necessary. Now, I’m wondering if the same thought process will prevail.
Keep an eye out for any generic word TLD submissions. If ICANN starts approving anything like dotBanks, dotLawyers or dotDoctors this thing is a farce. DotTravel is a fantastic generic TLD and it was an abysmal failure. ICANN knows this and if they start approving generic TLDs it will obvious to all that this program was for ICANN’s financial benefit and not the Internet’s.
Not sure why this is viewed as a negative or another reason to slag new gTLDs. It can easily be said that relevant govt approval should be required to nab the root geo name; its a mega, perpetual advantage and should be granted sparingly, much like generic gTLDs really. Countries also have an interest in preserving their ccTLD space, so there’s not gonna be .USA for instance. These new gTLDs should get used mostly for established brands and should work very well in that context IMHO. A crazy question is whether these geo oversight rules get used by govts to look backwards and effectively make existing .com and other pure geos ‘legal non-conforming’ or subject to any form of approval on subsequent transfer, as rules have a way of propagating as pointed out recently respecting concerns that variable pricing amongst differing registries will come to exist.
I expect a ton of applications for new gTLD’s to be exactly for what your talking about generic word TLD’s.
.lawyers (or a variation)
.doctors, or .health
.realestate ( or a variation)
all of those are for sure coming.
David
Moreover my understanding is that ICANN is now out of the business of approving or disapproving applications, except for string confusion or Geo infringement.
Otherwise, all applications will be approved unless challenged by third parties.
Too bad we all can’t buy stock in ICANN.
David,
Would you really want to buy stock in ICANN?
“ICANN Loses $4.6 Million Of Your Money In The Stock Market”
http://www.thedomains.com/2009/02/03/icann-losses-46-million-of-your-money-in-the-stock-market/
All is well. Open .paris, .nashville…..who cares? Open up 1,000,000 more extensions. Let them pick up the football and run a touchdown.
Why let them do that? Because after all the millions, and maybe billions, or dollars spent to make it happen they will be standing in the end zone holding the football, but all the money will still be at the other end of the field.
Almost all those domains in those extensions will be ghost towns. Once folks have visited those extensions enough times and repeatedly been let down by a bogus pages, non-existent pages, or parked pages…….they will gravitate back to the .com. It is already happening with .biz, .info, etc….. Folks are dropping those domains b/c you can’t get anyone to visit them.
It simply is hard enough to get people to visit the .com…….imagine how hard…..no matter how much money they spend……..it will be for other extensions to gain traction.
Folks travel on the Net like water…..they take the path of least resistance….which is .com. Big companies will learn this the hard way . 🙂
I am not worried so much about the new gTLDs for the reasons you point out. In no way will cities create a global network of perception for dot city and in no was spend the type of money needed over the last 15 years that branded dot com within worldwide media. It is just not going to happen and the world is not going to buy in into it en mass. I am more concerned that the internet as a whole would be unable to function independently for its users. ICANN should be focusing on making DNS and Root Server stability. They need to step out of the way and let the internet just do its thing, plain and simple.
IPv6, curtailing nefarious sabotage like DNS spoofing, whois openness, banning registrars that SPAM etc. The virtual elimination of domain tasting was a great example of ICANN helping to secure the basic infrastructure of the domain name system. They keep trying to promote competition as though it is something that was not working before and now must be fixed.
ICANN should see itself more as the IT department of a company and not its marketing devision.
Guys
Again the issue for me, probably the attorney in me, is the unfairness of the proposal.
Lawyers are trained to “fight for your rights”.
It is unacceptable to me that ICANN has shut out the public sector from the Geo space, a space again by definition which maybe quite broader than simple city, state and country names.
Personally I have no interest in owning one of these but the attorney in me, wants to defend YOUR or someone right to own it if they want and the governmental body doesn’t want it.
Elliot
I think the $4.6M figure was as of December 31, 2008, the loses I assume are even higher at this point.
Yet still better than investing with Madoff
I would still buy stock in ICANN because those stockholders’ meetings would be a hoot.
“But to give such jurisdictions absolute control over possible Geo extension seems inherently unfair.”
I agree with MHB, but let’s not forget in certain cc TLD this is how it works.
Holding or registering City names in some ccTLD’s is seen as a abuse and bad intent in different countries.
Also I see another problem which might pop up.
If for instance a dotNYC or dotPalmSprings should be used by the Government or City as there new extension? How long will it take until they start filing lawsuits on GEO .Com owners infringing and cyber squatting on there .City name?
For some of us at the moment maybe unbelievable but in today’s world, is there anything we can defiantly see as not possible?
Best Duane
Duane:
As any PTO attorney will tell you, precedent carries a ton of weight. For example, we’ve been using PalmSprings.com since 1995. If anyone tried to challange it because they had DotPalmSprings they wouldn’t have a legal leg to stand on. Furthermore, Gannett and McClatchy own many city geodomains. I wouldn’t expect them to say, “No problem, you can have them” anytime soon.
All of us reading this thread are pro’s and have an understanding of domains.
99% of the internet population would be totally confused by the new tlds.
If I told my wife to checkout a site at – hotels.PalmSprings.
She would type – hotels.PalmSprings.com
or HotelsPalmSprings.com
She really doesn’t understand the secondary tlds like .info and .biz .
All the tlds she knows is .com – .net – .org – .us – .gov .
I doubt she would “type-in” more than .com and .org.
I believe she is the average internet surfer.
I believe most of the tlds that might come out of Icann’s new folly will die a quick death.
@M. Castello – “I am more concerned that the internet as a whole would be unable to function independently for its users.”
Ditto. People have not yet wrapped their minds around the very real confusion that will be created. I’m somewhat surprised more people haven’t zeroed in yet on this over-the-cliff scenario when the right side of the dot becomes confused with the left side.
Mark my words. It is going to become extremely messy. ICANN’s ineptitude will finally surface for ALL the world to see with this ridiculous decision.
@Domainer – “99% of the internet population would be totally confused by the new tlds.”
Exactly. Companies will be pitted against one another. Much fallout.
Wow.
I’m dizzy #2.
Seriously, reading all of this and trying to make sense out of nonsense is astounding.
Not to mention the fees.
Of course, that’s not astounding.
That’s obscene.
ICANNT.com will soon be offering all domainers the .moon TLD. Yes folks! A TLD for the future colonies on the lunar surface. Dot Mars and Dot Venus will soon follow, buy your shares NOW!*
* Only $1,229 plus tax.
David: “Keep an eye out for any generic word TLD submissions. If ICANN starts approving anything like dotBanks, dotLawyers or dotDoctors this thing is a farce.”
It’s already a farce.
Don’t forget there is already .aero and .museum that have already been approved years ago.
How many of those have you seen developed?
.nyc and other “vanity domains” (as you say) will just go on the junk pile.
So, I’m not sure any of this discussion is worth our concern.
Rob
“”So, I’m not sure any of this discussion is worth our concern.””
Here’s why it is.
Your focusing on the end game, how successful will any of these extension be once they are released.
That’s a whole different issue and discussion.
Why you need to stay on top of this process and comment to ICANN on it, is that all ICANN rules become a precedent for future rules and contracts including all existing TLD’s.
So whatever ICANN passes rules wise for the crappiest new extension, are going to apply now or down the line to your best .com.
Removal of price cap will be deadly.
Giving government control over all geo domains, and broadening the definition what they consider to be a geo domain is a bad precedent to allow.
Allowing CADNA to use the new gTLD’s as a platform to add trademark laws without challenge, is going to put many existing domains in jeopardy.
A lot of stuff going on here and it will effect your existing domains.
How any of these extensions will do once there out, who cares right now.
An interesting insight to what have been discussed here and i have to agree to some of the points mention here.
Rob,
I believe .aero and .museum requires certification and verification for that entity to be from the specific industry hence the low number of domain names. No surprise here. Even .travel suffers the same fate. Such a fantastic extension being tied down.
As for how successful, geo domain maybe, we could look at .asia for example. They’re doing pretty well and recently i’ve been seeing advertisements (billboard,tvc,etc) that includes .asia extension.
It’s just a matter of time before they catch up. I believe some of the city TLDs and geo TLDs will be successful too but all in good time if they get there in the first place.
Domainer,
Well ppl might just stop typing in domain name one day. Then that would be serious trouble for all of us. The only reason being is, a lot of ppl would rely on search engine to get the right website based on keywords for us today. For example in Japan, this is also largely caused by language issue. A lot of the Japan internet users rely on Yahoo search engine to get to site.
I’m sure this is case for most countries that doesn’t speak English.
So if the Internet space gets really messy because there are 150 gTLDs around, expect more people to visit sites via search engine results.