In a letter sent to Heather Dryden , Chair, Governmental Advisory Committee by the New gTLD Program Committee (NGPC) , they are intending to accept the GAC’s Beijing Communiqué advice concerning Category 1 and Category 2 Safeguards.
The result of the NPGC action is that some new gTLD’s in the same vertical will be open to anyone who wants to register a domain name, while others will fall into the highly restricted category and can only be registered by those that are licensed or meet the relevant governing authority rules. For example .Law and .Legal will be open so anyone can register a domain name in those new gTLD’s but .lawyer and .attorney fall into the regulated new gTLD category, so that only those licensed to practice law in a jurisdiction will be allowed to register a .lawyer or .attorney domain.
Here is the rest of the letter:
Category 1 Safeguards
The text of the Category 1 Safeguards have been modified as appropriate to meet the spirit and intent of the advice in a manner that allows the requirements to be implemented as public interest commitments in Specification 11 of the New gTLD Registry Agreement (“PIC Spec”). The PIC Spec and a rationale explaining the modifications are attached.
The implementation plan also distinguishes the list of TLD strings listed in the Category 1 safeguard advice between strings that the NGPC considers strings associated with market sectors or industries that have highly regulated entry requirements in multiple jurisdictions, and those that do not. The Category 1 Safeguards in the PIC Spec will apply to the TLD strings based on how the TLD string is categorized. The list of re-categorized Category 1 strings is attached.
Category 2 Safeguards
ICANN contacted the 186 applicants for strings identified in the GAC’s Category 2 safeguard advice.
The applicants were asked to respond by a specified date indicating whether the applied for TLD will be operated as an exclusive access registry.
An overwhelming majority of the applicants (174) indicated that the TLD would not be operated as an exclusive access registry.
The NGPC recently adopted a resolution directing staff to move forward with the contracting process for applicants for strings identified in the Category 2
Safeguards that were prepared to enter into the Registry Agreement as approved, since moving forward with these applicants was consistent with the GAC’s advice.
Ten applicants responded that the TLD would be operated as an exclusive access registry.…
