Governments kill off another gTLD bid
Another proposed new gTLD has been killed off by governmental intervention.
A Thailand-based company call Better Living Management Company applied for .thai back in 2012, but quickly ran into opposition from the Thai government, which thought the string too culturally sensitive.
The ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee did not object to Thailand’s objection, and issued consensus advice asking ICANN to reject the application, which it did in November 2013.
BLM filed an Independent Review Process complaint in April 2014, alleging irregularities within the GAC, but the appeal was quickly shelved.
Now, five years later, the company has finally withdrawn it application, meaning it gets most of its application fee back as a refund.
Part of the reason the application failed is likely the fact that the Thai ccTLD registry, Thai Network Information Center Foundation, already runs the internationalized domain name ccTLD .ไทย, which means “.thai” in Thai.
Other applications to be killed off by GAC advice include .islam, .halal, .gcc and one of the .africa bids.
Applicant claims “rogue” GAC rep killed its gTLD
The unsuccessful applicant for the .thai top-level domain has become the third new gTLD hopeful to file an Independent Review Process complaint against ICANN.
Better Living Management had its bid for the restricted, Thailand-themed TLD rejected by ICANN in November due to a consensus objection from the Governmental Advisory Committee.
Now the company claims that the Thailand GAC representative who led the charge against its bid has never been formally authorized to speak for the Thai government at ICANN.
BLM says it has sued Wanawit Ahkuputra, one of three Thailand GAC reps listed on the GAC’s web site, in Thailand and wants ICANN to unreject its application pending the case’s outcome.
In the IRP request, BLM claims that Ahkuputra was appointed to the GAC by previous rep Thaweesak Koanantakool without the authorization of the Thai government.
It further claims that while Koanantakool was “invited” by the Thai government to be Thailand’s GAC rep, he was never formally “appointed” to the role. He was “erroneously recruited by the GAC”, BLM alleges.
Following that logic, Ahkuputra could not claim to be a legitimate GAC rep either, BLM claims.
From the IRP alone it looks like a bit of a tenuous, semantics-based argument. Is there any real difference between “invited” and “appointed” in the platitude-ridden world of diplomacy?
Nevertheless, BLM claims that by pushing the rest of the GAC to object to the .thai bid at the ICANN Beijing meeting a year ago, Ahkuputra acted against the wishes of the Thai government.
BLM says it has letters of support from five Thai government ministries — including the one Koanantakool works for — all signed during the new gTLD application and evaluation periods in 2012 and 2013.
Those letters were apparently attached to its IRP complaint but have not yet been published by ICANN.
BLM says it has sued Koanantakool and Ahkuputra, asking a Thai court to force them to drop their objections to the .thai bid.
This is not the first time that an unsuccessful new gTLD applicant has alleged that a GAC member was not properly appointed. DotConnectAfrica has level similar accusations against Kenya.
DCA claims (pdf) that Alice Munyua spoke against its .africa application in the GAC on behalf of Kenya but against the wishes of Kenya, which DCA says did not oppose the bid.
However, ICANN and GAC chair Heather Dryden rubbished these claims in ICANN’s reply (pdf) to DCA’s complaint, citing evidence that Kenya did in fact oppose the application.
ICANN rejects third new gTLD bid
ICANN has formally rejected .thai, only the third new gTLD application to suffer this fate.
It’s been flagged as “Not Approved”, following an objection from a consensus of the Governmental Advisory Committee led by an outcry from Thailand and Thai nationals.
Only DotConnectAfrica’s .africa and GCC’s .gcc have the same designation. Both also were killed off by GAC advice.
Better Living Management Company had applied for .thai, promising to restrict it to people and organizations with a local presence.
Thailand already has the ccTLD .th, of course, as well as the IDN equivalent, .ไทย, which means “Thailand”.
ICANN has not yet rejected any applications that lost crippling objections filed by non-governmental actors.
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