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.wine no longer blocked after EU drops complaint

Kevin Murphy, June 11, 2015, 07:31:06 (UTC), Domain Policy

Donuts and ICANN are currently in the process of signing new gTLD agreements for .wine and .vin, after the European Union and wine sellers dropped objections.
As of today, both gTLDs are “In Contracting” rather than “On Hold”, according to ICANN’s web site.
ICANN revealed earlier this week that the European Union and various wine trade associations have both dropped their Cooperative Engagement Process complaints.
CEP is less formal precursor to a much more expensive and lawyer-hungry Independent Review Process complaint.
With the CEPs out of the way, Donuts is now free to sign its contracts.
Donuts won the auction for .wine back in November, but its application was frozen due to ongoing arguments about the protection of “geographic indicators” representing wine-making regions.
Governments, particularly in Europe and Latin America, had protested that .wine and .vin should not be allowed to launch until areas such as Rioja and Champagne were given special privileges.
Last October, ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade told the French government that it was negotiating with applicants to get these protections included in the contracts.
Either Donuts has agreed to such protections, or the EU and wine-makers have gotten bored of complaining.
My feeling is the former is probably more likely, which may be controversial in itself.
There is no international agreement on GI protection — the US and Australia opposed the EU’s position on .wine — so this may be seen as a case of ICANN creating new rights where none previously existed.


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Comments (8)

  1. All this for that? Lol !

  2. Rubens Kuhl says:

    If Donuts has agreed to something, it hasn’t made into their PICs, which continue to be as they were before this battle started.

  3. Acro says:

    Can’t wait for .ouzo 😀

  4. I understand that there is nothing to be added to their contract.

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