[ALAC] Re "Introduction of Two-Character Domain Names in the New gTLD Namespace" Public comment

[Alan Greenberg]

I am not really sure what the logic was behind 
forbidding such use. The "confusion" aspect seems 
to be a pretty weak argument.

The only "logic" that I cold come up with is that 
some countries use the 2nd level to be equivalent 
to the original gTLD (ie .com.uk), so .uk.com is 
a reciprocal case. But in my mind it has really no merit.

Alan

At 10/07/2014 04:00 PM, Raf Fatani wrote:
>I’m with Even on this one.
>
>Anyhow, would our only reservation be it 
>confuses internet users that this is not a 
>ccTLD? or is there something more technical that 
>would disadvantage the end-uder I am not aware of?
>
>Raf
>On 10 Jul 2014, at 20:49, Evan Leibovitch <evan at telly.org> wrote:
>
> > Personally, I don't think there should be any restriction on of two-letter
> > strings.
> >
> > Each country has an ISO code for its own ccTLD. That should suffice. Unless
> > a gTLD registry wants themselves to segment their TLD by country there
> > should be no reason to reserve strings, especially when the strings are
> > also dictionary words ("my", "is", "to", "je", "si") or useful acronyms
> > ("ie", "fm", "ps", "ip").
> >
> > Since when is an ISO code a trademark (or to be treated like one)?
> >
> > I disagree with compounding the problem by reserving every two letter
> > string to anticipate conflict with countries not yet existing.
> >
> > And where does the lunacy stop? WIPO and other non-state intellectual
> > property orgs have reserved numerous ISO "country codes" for themselves
> > (ap, bx, ef, em, ep, ev, gc, ib, oa, wo)
> >
> > As yet I'm not convinced of the need for an ALAC statement. But if there
> > was one I would recommend dropping ALL reservations against two-letter
> > strings in gTLDs.
> >
> >
> >
> > On 10 July 2014 02:06, Dev Anand Teelucksingh <devtee at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Regarding the public comment on 
> "Introduction of Two-Character Domain Names
> >> in the New gTLD Namespace" at https://community.icann.org/x/VqzhAg
> >> which ends July 10 2014, I've posted the following at
> >> https://community.icann.org/x/VqzhAg
> >> for consideration:
> >>
> >> "Various registries for multiple gTLDs are applying for exceptions to
> >> Specification 5, Section 2 of the New gTLD Registry Agreement
> >> ("Specification 5") with some registries suggesting the release of 2
> >> character ASCII labels not on the current ISO 3166 standard would suffice.
> >>
> >> While this seems harmless, there is a possibility of new countries and
> >> territories being created, and then allocated a new two character ASCII
> >> label by ISO 3166/MA (see
> >>
> >> 
> https://web.archive.org/web/20111101141651/http://www.iso.org/iso/country_codes/iso-3166-1_decoding_table.htm
> >> ).
> >>
> >> Any new country or territory created after 
> 2014 would therefore not receive
> >> the same protection as those in the 2014 ISO 3166-2 list and would find
> >> that their new 2 character label is "given away", should they wish for
> >> their 2 character ASCII label to be protected, as per Specification 5.
> >>
> >> Now, should the principle established by Specification 5 protecting 2
> >> character ASCII labels even be in the New gTLD Registry Agreement? Many
> >> would say, especially given the prevalence of two character labels in
> >> existing TLDs like .com, .org and .net that this principle shouldn't be
> >> applied to new gTLDs.
> >> However, this (IMO) is a separate issue to the question being asked for in
> >> the public comment.
> >>
> >> If Specification 5 is meant to defend the principle that country codes in
> >> ISO 3166-2 should be protected in new gTLDs, then it should be enforced to
> >> ensure future countries and territories with new 2 character ASCII labels
> >> are protected in the same way as those 
> territories and countries in today's
> >> ISO 3166-2 list.
> >>
> >> Therefore, the proposals by Donuts for 143 of its new gTLDS, .kred by
> >> KredTLD Pty Ltd, .best by BestTLD Pty Ltd and .ceo by CEOTLD Pty Ltd.
> >> should be turned down in keeping with the principle of Specification 5.
> >>
> >> The proposal by .wiki by Top Level Design LLC which specifies that the two
> >> character ASCII labels will only be used for languages identified by ISO
> >> 639-1 does appear to meet the threshold that the use will not be confused
> >> with the corresponding country codes, as per Specification 5 and could be
> >> approved.
> >>
> >> Similarly, the proposal by .globo by Globo Comunicação e Participações S.A
> >> which proposed the use of two character ASCII labels that are not letters
> >> or by two characters where only one of the 
> character is a letter are labels
> >> that would not be used by ISO 3166-2 and could be approved."
> >>
> >> Thoughts?
> >>
> >> Kind Regards,
> >>
> >> Dev Anand Teelucksingh
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >>
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> >> 
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> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Evan Leibovitch
> > Toronto Canada
> >
> > Em: evan at telly dot org
> > Sk: evanleibovitch
> > Tw: el56
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