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Two dot-brands pass Extended Evaluation

Kevin Murphy, November 1, 2013, Domain Registries

ICANN did not have much to report in this week’s batch of new gTLD evaluation results, as that stage of the program gradually winds down.
Two dot-brands — Shaw Cablesystems and TUI — passed Extended Evaluation for their .shaw and .tui applications.
TUI had to secure permission from Burkina Faso for .tui, which matches the protected name of one of its provinces, while Shaw had to provide better financial statements to pass.
Only four applications remain in Initial Evaluation — .pwc, .bbb, .kosher and .search. Eight applications are currently in Extended Evaluation.

Five gTLDs fail the geo test, but .banque passes IE

Kevin Murphy, September 6, 2013, Domain Registries

Five new gTLD applications failed their Initial Evaluation this week after being ruled “geographic”, according to results just published by ICANN.
The big name failure is Tata Group, the $100 billion-a-year Indian conglomerate, which had its bid for .tata put on hold because (presumably) its name matches the name of a tiny Moroccan province.
TUI AG, a €17.5 billion-a-year Germany-based travel group, also failed to pass the geo test with its bid for .tui, which matches the name of province of Burkina Faso.
Both of these applications were highlighted in our July 2012 article “20 new gTLD applications that think they’re not geographic, but are”.
Guangzhou YU Wei Information Technology failed on geographic grounds with three applications which match the names of Chinese provinces: .深圳, .佛山 and .广州.
Under ICANN rules, if your string matches a name of an administrative region of a country, you need support or a letter of non-objection from that country’s government.
All three applicants now have Extended Evaluation to try again to secure this support.
Also today, Gexban’s application for .banque got a passing IE score. It’s uncontested but has outstanding Governmental Advisory Committee advice standing in the way of contracting with ICANN.
While ICANN formally closed its IE process last week, it’s still mopping up the stragglers. Today, 23 applications remain in Initial Evaluation.