“Although, THNIC views ICANN’s new gTLDs program as a mean to open up opportunities for innovations thus drive for further developments for the Internet as a whole, the program should be carried out without causing confusions or disturbances to the users of the Internet.”

“THNIC would like to provide the following comments for the panel for consideration:”

“(1) The applicant has made a claim to work closely with THNIC in the following statement:”

“BLM will closely collaborate with THNIC – the registry operator of .TH country code TLD.

“BLM intends to hold joint promotion and marketing activities with THNIC for the promotion of .THAI and IDN equivalent.”

“A meeting, requested by BLM, with THNIC was held on April 4, 2012, where it was made clear to BLM that such collaboration is not foreseen from THNIC with all the differences in our objectives and policies as well as conflicting interests.”

“THNIC is a not-for-profit community service organization whose policies are formulated through consultations with relevant government and private sectors as well as community-based organizations. As this standpoint was made clear to the applicant thus the above statement in their application is one-sided and is not endorsed by THNIC.”

“(2) The word “THAI” is the transliteration of the word “ไทย” which is our IDN ccTLD.

“The two strings in ASCII and in Thai sound exactly the same once read by any thai speaking person. ”

“This is definitely a serious phonetic string conflict causing confusion for the Internet users.”

“(3) The applied for string, THAI, is commonly known as our country name by any Thai citizen. ”

“If such a string was to be applied for and to co-exist with .ไทย with completely different policies, its impacts and consequences on Thailand and the Thai users should have been properly discussed in the public.”

“THNIC hopes that our comments are useful for the evaluation panel.”

“Yours sincerely,Dr. Gothom Arya

Chairman

THNIC

“”THNIC was officially established in 2007 to administer .th and .ไทย ccTLD after having provided .th registration services by a group of volunteers since 1988.””

THNIC Committee:

Dr. Gothom Arya Chairman

Prof. Dr. Kanchana Kanchanasut Vice-Chairman

Dr. Yunyong Teng-amnuay Committee

Assoc. Prof. Surasak Sanguanpong Committee

Assist. Prof. Dr. Panjai Tantasanawong Committee

THNIC Sub-Committee on Domain Name Policy has been established in 2000 to provide suggestion and decision on .th and .ไทย policies and procedures. Total of 16 organizations have sent specialists as their representatives into the sub-committee :

Ministry of Information and Communication Technology

Inter-University Network, Office of the Higher Education Commission

National Electronics and Computer Technology Center

Ministry of Education

Department of Business Development, Ministry of Commerce

Department of Intellectual Property, Ministry of Commerce

Royal Thai Armed Forces Headquarter

Royal Thai Police

Thai Chamber of Commerce

The Federation of Thai Industries

The Telecommunication Association of Thailand

Thai Webmaster Association

Thai Internet Service Provider Association

T.H.NIC Co., Ltd.

Thai Name Server Co., Ltd.

THNIC