INDIA FOCUS: NEW gTLDS
SENSITIVE NAMES:
and encourage competition. T e characteristic feature of the second generation gTLD is that it can be anything from the name of a company or a country to a sport or an object.
THE SAGA OF .RAM AND gTLDS
With new generic top-level domains close to launch, Lucy Rana takes a look at ways to deal with applications that might be offensive in India.
Expanding on the world of .com, .gov, .org and 19 other gTLDs, the new gTLD programme opened the door for all types of words in many diff erent languages and scripts to become TLDs. T e fi rst large- scale expansion of the TLD name space drew 1,930 applications (for 1,409 diff erent new gTLDs) from 60 countries and territories, including 66 geographic name applications and 116 internationalised domain names (IDNs) in non-Latin characters for strings in scripts such as Arabic, Chinese and Cyrillic. Twenty of those are from India, for names including .tata, .infosys, .hdfc and .sbi.
Early warnings
Following the submission of the application and administrative completeness check performed by ICANN, a comment period is provided for the community to review and submit comments on posted application materials. Concurrent with the 60-day comment period, the GAC may issue an Early Warning notice concerning an application. Interestingly, on November 20, 2012, a GAC Early Warning was submitted with respect to the .ram domain. T e reasons as cited in the notice are produced below:
“Ram is a deity worshipped in India, in the Hindu religion, with a large following. Ram is worshipped as a Hindu God and is the hero of one of
the great epics of the country,
Ramayana, which is a globally famous work. “Section 9(2) of
the the Indian Trade Mark Act
clearly mentions that a mark shall not be registered if it contains or comprises any matter likely to hurt the religious susceptibilities of any class or section of the citizens of India.
“As a result, and based on the provisions of the Indian Trade Mark Act, we believe that the gTLD string .ram should be set aside by ICANN.”
At the Durban meeting of Advisory Committee (GAC) of
the Governmental the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in July, India objected to
the
registration of .ram as a generic TLD (gTLD), the application for which was fi led by the automobile giant Chrysler Group LLC. T e objection has its root in the word ram, which is a homonym for the Hindu God Lord Rama (or Ram). Government offi cials fear that if such a registration were allowed, it could be used to create domain names such as
www.murder.ram or
www.sex.ram which
may not only hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus but may also raise community tension.
T e gTLD process has provided entrepreneurs, businesses, governments and communities around the world an opportunity to obtain a TLD registry of their own choosing, but instances like this have highlighted the fl ipside.
New domains
On June 20, 2011 ICANN voted to launch the new gTLD programme so as to foster diversity
40 World Intellectual Property Review September/October 2013
Other GAC Early Warnings with India as fi ling GAC member are shown in the table below.
T e GAC may provide public policy advice directly to the ICANN Board on any application. GAC’s Advice on New gTLDs is to be submitted by the close of
the objection fi ling period. A
GAC Early Warning is not a prerequisite to using the GAC advice process. If the board receives GAC Advice on New gTLDs stating that it is the consensus of the GAC that a particular application should not proceed, it will create a strong presumption for the ICANN Board that the application should not be approved. If the
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