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Bulgaria polls public for Cyrillic TLD ideas

Kevin Murphy, July 21, 2010, Domain Registries

The Bulgarian government is asking its people what Cyrillic top-level domain it should ask for if ICANN refuses to reverse its rejection of .бг.
The Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology has published a poll on its web site, presenting four options for an IDN ccTLD.
Its first choice, .бг, was rejected by ICANN/IANA in May due to its visual similarity to another ccTLD, believed to be Brazil’s .br.
The four new options are .бгр, .българия, .бя and .бъл.
Bulgarians can also vote for “nothing but .бг” or declare that they do not want a Cyrillic domain at all.
The poll page, via Google Translate, suggests that the Ministry is prepared to wait for another opportunity to apply for .бг or for an ICANN appeals process to be created, if that’s what the public wants.
The Minister had previously promised to appeal the rejection of .бг.
(First reported by Novinite.)

Bulgaria to file ICANN reconsideration appeal over rejected IDN ccTLD

Kevin Murphy, June 27, 2010, Domain Registries

Bulgaria is to appeal ICANN’s rejection of .бг, the Cyrillic version of its existing country code top-level domain, .bg.
Technology minister Alexander Tsvetkov said that the Bulgarian government will file a reconsideration request with ICANN, according to a DarikNews.bg interview.
The requested IDN ccTLD .бг was rejected because it looks quite a bit like Brazil’s existing ASCII ccTLD, .br, which could create confusion for Brazilians.
ICANN/IANA does not talk openly about ccTLD delegation issues. As far as I know, .бг is the only IDN ccTLD on the current fast-track program to be rejected on string-similarity grounds.
The Darik News interview, via Google Translate, reports Tsvetkov saying he “believes that this domain is the best way for Bulgaria” and that the government “will ask for reconsideration”.
Asked about the clash with Brazil, he said Bulgaria “will not quit” in its pursuit of its first-choice ccTLD.
Brazil has not been silent on the issue.
During the meeting on Tuesday between the ICANN board and its Governmental Advisory Committee, Brazil’s representative praised ICANN for rejecting .бг:

Brazil would like to express its support to the recent board’s decision about avoiding graphic similitude between new country codes and current country codes in Latin. This is particularly important inasmuch as any graphic confusion might facilitate phishing practices and all the problems related to it.

Many thanks to the Bulgarian reader who referred me to this Darik News interview.
For any other Bulgarians reading this, the interview also appears to contain lots of other really juicy information not related to domain names. Check it out.

ICANN says no to Bulgarian ccTLD

Kevin Murphy, May 19, 2010, Domain Registries

Bulgaria can not have a localized-script version of its country-code domain .bg, because it looks too much like Brazil’s current ccTLD.
Bulgarian business daily Dnevnik is reporting that ICANN has turned down Bulgaria’s request for .бг, the Cyrillic translation of .bg, because it looks very much like .br.
Part of ICANN’s internationalized domain name fast-track process checks whether applied-for strings could be visually confusing. Clearly, this is one of them.
Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have already passed the test and have active IDN ccTLDs.
The Bulgarians are not giving up, however. Dnevnik reports that the country will most likely apply for .бгр instead.