Der von dot­BER­LIN initi­ier­te Vor­schlag an ICANN, die­je­ni­gen neu­en Top-Level-Domains, die geo­gra­phi­schen Begrif­fen, Com­mu­ni­ties und IDNs (nicht-latei­ni­schen Skrip­ten) ent­spre­chen, zuerst zuzu­las­sen, wird welt­weit unterstützt.

Von ins­ge­samt 98 Kom­men­ta­ren zur Zulas­sungs­se­quen­zie­rung haben sich 46 Kom­men­ta­re dafür aus­ge­spro­chen, im öffent­li­chen Inter­es­se lie­gen­de Endun­gen wie .ber­lin, .ieee oder .info (auf chi­ne­sisch) ande­ren wie .casi­no, .fish oder .poker vorzuziehen.

Unser Vor­schlag wur­de von .ALSACE, .AFRICA, .BERLIN, .BOSTON, .FOHSAN, .GENT, .GUANDONG, GUANZONG, .HAMBURG, .IST, .ISTANBUL, .MADRID, .MOSCOW, .MOCKBA, .QUEBEC, .RIO, .RUHR, .STOCKHOLM, .TIROL, .WIEN, .VEGAS direkt unter­stützt. Zahl­rei­che wei­te­re GeoTLDs wie .AMSTERDAM, .NYC, .COLOGNE, .KOELN und .SAARLAND haben basie­rend auf unse­rem Vor­schlag eige­ne Kom­men­ta­re eingebracht.

Der Ori­gi­nal­kom­men­tar lautet:

Com­ment of Geo­gra­phi­cal Name gTLD Applicants

This com­ment is a joint com­ment of 22 sig­ning appli­cants (see and of the docu­ment) who appli­ed for a New gTLD that is a Geo­gra­phi­cal Name.

Intro­duc­tion

Geo­gra­phi­cal Name gTLDs have Govern­men­tal Support
Geo­gra­phi­cal Names as gTLDs are cle­ar­ly defi­ned by the gTLD Appli­cant Gui­de­book, para­graph 2.2.1.4.2 Geo­gra­phic Names Requi­ring Govern­ment Sup­port. Geo­gra­phi­cal Name gTLDs (Geo-TLDs in the fol­lo­wing) have in com­mon that the string is a meaningful repre­sen­ta­ti­on or abbre­via­ti­on of a geo­gra­phi­cal name that is pro­tec­ted by natio­nal laws. Geo-TLDs have also in com­mon that the respec­ti­ve ope­ra­tor for the string is or is being sup­port­ed by the rele­vant sove­reign local and natio­nal government(s). By the­se least com­mon deno­mi­na­tors the Geo-TLDs are in the Public Interest.

66 Appli­cants clai­med the „Geo­gra­phi­cal Name” status

As of 13 June 2012 66 appli­ca­ti­ons that clai­med the Geo­gra­phi­cal Name Top-Level Domains sta­tus have been published. The Geo-TLD appli­ca­ti­ons ran­ge from TLDs for lar­ge cities and regi­ons to small cul­tu­ral and lan­guage TLDs. The appli­cants and respec­ti­ve gTLD ope­ra­tors ran­ge from govern­ments to non-for-pro­fit enti­ties and com­mer­cial com­pa­nies. The busi­ness models ran­ge from a sin­gle regis­trant regime (only for use by the govern­ment) via rest­ric­ted regis­tra­ti­ons (only for indi­vi­du­als of the com­mu­ni­ty) to free domain name regis­tra­ti­ons for everyone.

Geo-TLDs have alre­a­dy expres­sed their opi­ni­on to ICANN

At least a dozen City and Regio­nal Govern­ments have writ­ten to ICANN during the last months to sup­port a pre­fer­red pro­ces­sing of Geo-TLDs but ICANN neither published the­se let­ters nor gave a feedback.
In order to fol­low ICANN’s request to ans­wer spe­ci­fic ques­ti­ons on pro­ces­sing appli­ca­ti­ons we would like to com­ment as follows:

Should the meter­ing or smoot­hing con­sider releasing eva­lua­ti­on results, and tran­si­tio­ning appli­ca­ti­ons into the con­tract exe­cu­ti­on and pre-dele­ga­ti­on test­ing pha­ses, at dif­fe­rent times?

In order to faci­li­ta­te a smooth imple­men­ta­ti­on of new gTLDs into the root, uncon­tes­ted appli­ca­ti­ons that have been suc­cessful­ly eva­lua­ted should imme­dia­te­ly be direc­ted to „Tran­si­ti­on to Dele­ga­ti­on” inclu­ding publi­ca­ti­on of the eva­lua­ti­on results for the publicly available part of the appli­ca­ti­ons. A simul­ta­neous release of eva­lua­ti­on results of all appli­ca­ti­ons is unneces­sa­ry and con­tra­pro­duc­ti­ve sin­ce it crea­tes fur­ther delays for applicants.

How can appli­ca­ti­ons be allo­ca­ted to par­ti­cu­lar release times in a fair and equi­ta­ble way?

A fair and equi­ta­ble way would be to dele­ga­te appli­ca­ti­ons in an order that ser­ves the public inte­rest. Such an order should prio­ri­ti­ze uncon­tes­ted appli­ca­ti­ons that have a spe­cial public inte­rest sta­tus such as a) Geo­gra­phi­cal Name, b) Com­mu­ni­ty or c) IDN. The sequen­cing for dele­ga­ti­on should fol­low a round-robin pro­cess per ICANN region.
As a second step an ICANN regi­on based round-robin should be con­duc­ted with uncon­tes­ted appli­ca­ti­ons from sin­gle appli­cants and port­fo­lio appli­cants who can choo­se one string as their pre­fer­red one, assum­ing this string has neither objec­tions nor contention.
The round-robin will be con­tin­ued as long as neces­sa­ry. Appli­ca­ti­ons in exten­ded eva­lua­ti­on, objec­tion, con­ten­ti­on and with GAC inter­ac­tion will be added to the round-robin pool as soon as their objec­tion and/or con­ten­ti­on has been completed.

Would this approach pro­vi­de suf­fi­ci­ent smoot­hing of the dele­ga­ti­on rate?

Our descri­bed approach would not only ser­ve the public inte­rest and take the inte­rests of all appli­cants into respect, it would also allow crea­ting new gTLD suc­cess sto­ries for ICANN. Such events are despera­te­ly nee­ded to rein­force public inte­rest, trust and relia­bi­li­ty in ICANN and are accor­ding to ICANN’s mission.

Should the meter­ing or smoot­hing be accom­plished by down­stream meter­ing of appli­ca­ti­on pro­ces­sing (i.e., in the con­tract exe­cu­ti­on, pre-dele­ga­ti­on test­ing or dele­ga­ti­on phases)?

With the pro­po­sed public inte­rest prio­riza­ti­on and fol­lo­wed by a round-robin method we do not expect any neces­si­ty to down­stream dele­ga­ti­on rates.

Addi­tio­nal­ly all appli­cants should be asked if they want to „opt out” with the con­se­quence of being initi­al­ly eva­lua­ted at a later stage. This could signi­fi­cant­ly decrease the num­ber of appli­ca­ti­ons to be review­ed in the first instance.

How can appli­ca­ti­ons be allo­ca­ted to a par­ti­cu­lar timing in con­tract exe­cu­ti­on, pre-dele­ga­ti­on test­ing, or dele­ga­ti­on in a fair and equi­ta­ble way?

ICANN should for­ward appli­ca­ti­ons in the „tran­si­ti­on to dele­ga­ti­on” sta­tus as soon as pos­si­ble after they have been review­ed suc­cessful­ly in order to faci­li­ta­te a smooth intro­duc­tion of new TLDs into the root.
Pro­vi­de reaso­ning for sel­ec­ting this approach. The ques­ti­ons should be asked the other way around.

Are the­re any valid reasons why the publi­ca­ti­on of eva­lua­ti­on results should be with­held to a cer­tain „reve­al date”?

The­r­e­fo­re ICANN should pro­cess gTLDs down the path as they are rea­dy for the next step.

Include a state­ment describ­ing the level of importance that the order of eva­lua­ti­on and dele­ga­ti­on has for your application.

Geo-TLDs are very well accept­ed and popu­lar new gTLD strings, this is com­mon opi­ni­on within the ICANN com­mu­ni­ty inclu­ding GAC. In terms of busi­ness plan­ning an ear­ly appr­oval of Geo-TLDs is likely to con­tri­bu­te to a maxi­mum eco­no­mic and poli­ti­cal suc­cess of the New gTLD pro­gram and ICANN’s repu­ta­ti­on as well.

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20120829_strong_support_for_idns_geos_and_or_communities_to_go_first/

http://www.geo-tld.org

http://www.geo-tlds.org

http://www.geo-top-level-domain.org

http://www.geo-top-level-domain.de

http://www.geo-top-level-domains.org

http://www.geographical-top-level-domain.org

http://www.geographical-top-level-domains.org

http://www.geotopleveldomain.de