.Vegas apparently is not a Geo, so  says the ICANN Geographic Names Panel.

The panel “has determined that the string .Vegas does not fall within the criteria for a geographic name contained in the Applicant Guidebook Section 2.2.1.4.”

The .Vegas application says:

“Dot Vegas, Inc. (herein referred to as “Dot Vegas”, “Dot Vegas, Inc.ʺ, the ʺCompanyʺ or “Applicantʺ), in cooperation with and under the express endorsement and direction of the City of Las Vegas, Nevada (as described below in Question #21)”

Moreover the application provides that:

“We will implement specific measures for the protection of geographic names at the second and other levels in the .VEGAS TLD.

“Locally, Dot Vegas has already worked with the City of Las Vegas to identify a full list of those second level domains that are of significance to the City (i.e. mayor.vegas, citycouncil.vegas, fremontstreet.vegas, etc). ”

“In accordance with its written agreement with the City, prior to the launch of any domain registrations, Dot Vegas will register at no cost those names identified for use solely by the City, its departments or designees. ”

“A similar process is underway in discussions with Clark County, the Nevada Development Authority, and the Las Vegas Visitors and Convention Bureau for identifying and reserving (prior to the launch of Sunrise registration processes) those names of significance to them. ”

“As with names reserved for the City, all names reserved for Clark County, the Nevada Development Authority and other local governmental entities will be agreed upon between the applicable governmental entity and Dot Vegas as the registry operator, will be registered at no cost in the name of the applicable local governmental entity, and reserved for their sole use for a period of five (5) years, after which such entities will pay the then existing domain name fees to maintain said registration.”

Other than the statement that “The Geographic Names Panel has determined that the string does not fall within the criteria for a geographic name contained in the Applicant Guidebook Section 2.2.1.4” there is no other information on ICANN site on why .Vegas is not a Geo.

Also announced during the ICANN Webinar tonight and now reflected on the ICANN site is that the applications for several other new gTLD’s that were applied for as a Geographic string failed the ICANN Geographic Names Panel

.Scot(The .scot TLD application is submitted by dotScot Registry Limited in name and on behalf of the Scottish community, composed of individuals and organizations linked to the community on a cultural or business basis, or by any other activity conducive to the welfare of the Scottish community)

.FRL (Frisian people living in Friesland, Frisians living in other part of the Netherlands, and Frisians living abroad and wanting to identify themselves with the Frisian culture and heritage).

.Zulu (for the Zulu nation and the isiZulu language. The application by Top Level Domain Holdings for the .ZULU top-level has the support of the King Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu and his government.  The Zulu people are the largest South African ethnic group, with an estimated 10.5 million people living mainly in the province of KwaZulu-Natal)

.iST (For Istanbul)

.RYUKYU (In modern Japanese context, Ryukyu generally refers to the Okinawa Prefecture. It is also known in Japanese as Ryukyu Islands, Nansei Islands, and Ryukyu Arc. Okinawa Prefecture has historic links, in terms of administrative extent, to the Ryukyu Kingdom, Ryukyu-han, and government of Ryukyu Islands)

I guess the good news is that the ICANN Geographic Names Panel did find that .NYC, .Boston, .London & .Miami are Geographical areas.

Of course there is not a famous expression like Zulu Baby or Scot Baby like there is for VegasBaby.com which happens to be owned by our good friend and gTLD applicant Mr. Schilling.