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Release of Country and Territory Names within the .EMERCK, .HAMBURG and .BERLIN TLDs

2 March 2015

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Forum Announcement: Comment Period Opens on Date: 2 March 2015
Categories/Tags:
  • Top-Level Domains
  • Second-Level Domains
  • Contracted Party Agreements
  • Security/Stability
Purpose (Brief):

Three (3) Registry Services Evaluation Policy (RSEP) requests were submitted by the registry operators listed below to allow the release of country and territory names for the below TLDs. In total, the requests concern 3 New gTLDs.

Proposal TLD Registry Name Documents
2014076 berlin dotBERLIN GmbH & Co. KG dotBERLIN GmbH & Co. KG Request 08 February 2015 [PDF, 17 KB]
2014075 hamburg Hamburg Top-Level-Domain GmbH Hamburg Top-Level-Domain GmbH Request 08 February 2015 [PDF, 17 KB]
2014070 emerck Merck KGaA Merck KGaA Request 23 January 2015 [PDF, 17 KB]

Currently, .EMERCK, .HAMBURG and .BERLIN Registry Agreements require country and territory names contained in specific internationally recognized lists to be withheld from registration or allocated to the registry operator at all levels.

As required by the RSEP, ICANN has undertaken a preliminary determination on whether these RSEP proposals might raise significant competition, security or stability issues. ICANN's preliminary review (based on the information provided) did not identify any such issues.

Following ICANN's preliminary determination that the proposals do not raise significant competition, security or stability issues, it was further determined that the change would require a material change to the respective Registry Agreements and that an amendment is needed in order to effect the change.

The proposed amendments, which are being posted for comment, would allow the registration of country and territory names at all levels in .EMERCK, .HAMBURG and .BERLIN TLDs. It should be noted that as of 13 November 2014, Specification 13 is granted for .EMERCK, whereas Registry Agreements for .HAMBURG and .BERLIN do not include Specification 13 provisions in place and these two TLDs are Geo TLDs.

Public Comment Box Link: https://www.icann.org/public-comments/emerck-hamburg-berlin-amendment-2015-03-02-en