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Geo gTLD applicants make “public interest” case for priority approval

Kevin Murphy, November 6, 2012, 22:32:54 (UTC), Domain Policy

ICANN’s has reached out to governments supporting geographic gTLD applicants over the last week, urging them to submit formal comments on the proposed “Draw” mechanism for prioritizing applications.
A barrage of correspondence from regional and city governments, some dating back as early as March when Digital Archery was still in play, has been published by ICANN over the last 48 hours.
They’re accompanied by much more recent responses from ICANN’s newly installed new gTLD program general manager, Christine Willett.
ICANN has heard from, among others, the state backers of .tirol, .zuerich, .hamburg and .berlin, all arguing that their geographic gTLD bids should be prioritized as being in the “public interest”.
The Draw mechanism would give priority to internationalized domain names, but not geographic gTLDs.
What’s missing from all the letters are any attempts to explain or justify the “public interest” claims.
ICANN’s responses are all the same: thanks for your letter, please contribute to the current public comment period on the proposed new gTLD prioritization lottery.
The letters can all be found on ICANN’s correspondence page. The comment period closes Friday.

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Comments (1)

  1. Some letter from city and regional governments sent to ICANN are still missing. Like the one from the Berlin government stating:
    “We therefore urge ICANN to ensure that community-based public-interest geographic gTLD
    applications are evaluated in the first batch, or given the necessary priority to be approved
    within a year of the launch of the initial new gTLD application window on January 12, 2012.”
    I hope ICANN puts them online the next days.

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