[ga] Geographic and Geopolitical Names in .info

[Alexander Svensson <alexander@svensson.de>]

Dear all,

as you probably all know, the GAC recommended in Montevideo
that "the use of names of countries and distinct economies
as recognised in international fora as second level domains
in the .info TLD should be at the discretion of the respective
governments and public authorities."
(http://www.icann.org/committees/gac/communique-09sep01.htm).

The Board response:
http://www.icann.org/minutes/prelim-report-10sep01.htm
(General Counsel may prevent ISO 3166-1 country names
from being registered in .info; President proposes action
plan within 30 days, i.e. 10-Oct-01).

What are the options?

1. Following GAC recommendation:
Names of countries and distinct economies, particularly those
contained in the ISO 3166-1 standard should be reserved in .info
(or if registered in the Sunrise Period challenged by the
Registry and, if successful, then reserved) in Latin characters
in their official language(s) and in English and assigned to
the corresponding governments and public authorities, at their
request, for use.

2. Extending preliminary Board measures:
The registration in .info of names of countries and distinct
economies contained in the ISO 3166-1 list that have not yet
been registered during the Sunrise Period is maintained.
Any other such names that are returned to the database
following a successful challenge by the Registry Operator are
also maintained.

3. Reserving country codes instead of names:
Codes of countries and distinct economies contained in the
ISO 3166-1 list are already barred from registration
(.info agreement, appendix K). The CC.info domain names
(where CC is the country code) are assigned to the
corresponding governments and public authorities, at their
request, for use.

4. No reservation of country names:
Governments may acquire their country name .info domain
just as any other entity.

5. Opening .int domain space for country names:
Currently, .int domain names are only for registering
organizations established by international treaties
between governments. Governments may be encouraged to
register the names of countries and distinct economies
contained in the ISO 3166-1 list under .int. (Note that
palestine.int has been preceeding the .ps TLD)

6. Opening a new TLD for country sites:
Instead of mixing international governmental organizations
and country names in .int, governments may get the
opportunity to register the names of countries and
distinct economies contained in the ISO 3166-1 list under
a new TLD. (The TLD string may ideally be .gov, but since
it is unlikely that the US government will give up its use
quickly, another TLD string would be necessary). The
registry could be managed by IANA (having experiences with
running a small TLD like .int).

My own comments:
Country name .info domains obtained by using false trademarks
should of course be auto-challenged. However, I dislike
the idea of closing additional parts of the domain name space,
especially in multiple languages, multiple variants and
potentially at various levels (state and city names are
obviously next in line). The TLD strings are also about
public expectations: If I can expect country.info to be
the official site of a country's government, a commercial
inofficial city site at city.info looks odd. Additionally,
the GAC request comes too late for .info.
I would prefer option 6: A TLD reserved for official country
names. (Maybe a .travel TLD in the next TLD round would solve
part of the problem by reserving country.travel to the
official tourism authorities of each country.)

Best regards,
/// Alexander
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