Two-Character Letter/Letter Comments Consideration Process
This is an archive of Version October 2015 of the Two-Character Letter/Letter Comments Consideration Process webpage. Click here for the current page. Click here to view the archive index of the Authorization Process webpage and see what was updated.
As of 6 October 2015, labels that have received comments regarding their release will be evaluated using the process described in ICANN's 11 August 2015 blog post.
To submit a comment regarding a specific letter/letter label request, please go to Comment Submission Form.
View all comments submitted on or after 6 October 2015
View all comments submitted before 6 October 2015
UPDATE (4 December 2015): The comments clarification submission (Phase 1) period was extended from 5 December 2015 23:59 UTC to 8 December 2015 23:59 UTC.
Coming in December 2015: Form for Registry Operators to Submit Mitigation Measures to Avoid Confusion
View existing Two-Character Letter/Letter Comments and Mitigation Measures
Click here for the Authorization Process for Release of Two-Character ASCII Labels.
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ICANN reaches out to all relevant governments to further clarify their comments.
ICANN will reach out to all governments that have submitted comments to better understand their concerns, including why a relevant government may believe a specific label.TLD combination causes confusion with the corresponding country code. As ICANN evaluates the responses to our outreach, comments not pertaining to confusion might be directed to recourse mechanisms outside of the Authorization Process, such as the Abuse Point of Contact, which is used when abuse is suspected.
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ICANN reaches out to registries to respond with a mitigation plan.
ICANN will ask registries to respond to relevant governments' comments with measures to be implemented to avoid confusion with corresponding country codes. As with the governments' comments clarification, the registries' mitigation plans will be published.
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ICANN aggregates governments' comments and registries' mitigation plans to draft the criteria for approval.
Once ICANN has received feedback within the allotted timeframe from both governments and registries, ICANN will aggregate the comments that governments have raised, as well as the mitigation measures that registries have identified. From those inputs, ICANN will endeavor to find commonality to draft the criteria by which ICANN can evaluate whether the measures identified by a registry successfully mitigate the confusion raised by the government. These draft criteria will be posted for public comment before final adoption.
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ICANN takes into consideration the feedback provided by community and creates finalized criteria for approval.
Taking into consideration the feedback provided by the community during the Public Comment period, ICANN will strive to produce a finalized set of criteria for approval, which will be used to evaluate mitigation plans provided by the registries for previously commented on labels. Moreover, these finalized criteria for approval may be used to evaluate all future two-character authorization requests that receive comments from relevant governments. Considering the breadth of TLDs involved, it is conceivable that multiple sets of criteria could be adopted to apply to different subsets of TLDs such as those with a Specification 13 provision for a brand TLD.
The current framework of the Authorization Process, whereby a registry submits an authorization request and relevant governments may submit comments, is not expected to change. However, we believe the finalized criteria for approval will help everyone with a more clearly defined standard with which ICANN can evaluate future requests.