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ICANN snubs Belgium, gives Donuts the all-clear for .spa
ICANN has rejected demands by the Belgian government by giving Donuts the go-ahead to proceed with its application for .spa, which Belgium says infringes on a geographic name.
Noting that the Governmental Advisory Committee had submitted no consensus advice that Donuts .spa bid should be rejected, the ICANN board’s New gTLD Program Committee said last week “the applications will proceed through the normal process.”
That means the two-way contention set is presumably going to auction.
The English dictionary word “spa” derives from Spa, a small Belgian town with some springs.
The other applicant is Asia Spa and Wellness Promotion Council, which has made a deal with Spa to donate some of its profits to local projects and give the city some control over the registry.
Donuts refused to sign a similar deal, leading to Belgium last month asking ICANN to delegate the gTLD to ASWPC and not Donuts.
The GAC’s last word on .spa was this, from the recent Singapore meeting:
Regarding the applications for .spa, the GAC understands that the relevant parties in these discussions are the city of Spa and the applicants. The GAC has finalised its consideration of the .spa string and welcomes the report that an agreement has been reached between the city of Spa and one of the applicants.
There’s no ICANN fudging here; if the GAC wanted to issue a consensus objection it could have.
The question is: why didn’t it?
Why does the string “amazon”, which does not exactly match the name of a place in its local languages, qualify for a GAC objection, while “spa”, which exactly matches the name of a city, does not?
NGPC did it again in saying they are following GAC Advice when they know they aren’t… there was advice, although not consensus advice as pointed out.
“Why does the string “amazon”, which does not exactly match the name of a place in its local languages, qualify for a GAC objection, while “spa”, which exactly matches the name of a city, does not?”
Very simple, the US were against a GAC consensus objection on .spa on the ohter hand there were not opposed to a consensus objection on .amazon.
The guys for .AMAZON should have spoken to the DNA 🙂
The point is that nobody associates the word “spa” with that town in Belgium anymore than someone walking into a McDonald’s and ordering a hamburger is reminded of Hamburg, Germany (or, for that matter, meat).
Who advertises, “A day in our spa will transport your mind and senses to Belgium”? I’ve seen what Belgian water fountains do – I sure as hell am not getting into their hot tub!
In France, SPA stands for “Société Protectrice des Animaux”, it is famous.
That certainly explains why my last spa break in Paris wasn’t quite as relaxing as I’d hoped.