News

Deadline to comment on dot charity domain is extended1

IT | Kirsty Weakley | 16 Aug 2012

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) has pushed back the deadline for people to comment on all applications for generic top-level domain (gTLD) names by 45 days.

Anyone wanting to have their comments taken into consideration by those evaluating the applications now has until 26 September.

NCVO has already urged the charity sector to object to the bids from two private companies that want to own the .charity gTLD.

Earlier this month, Karl Wilding, head of policy and research, explained the organisiation's stance in a blog on NCVO's website: “Our concern – which may be misplaced – is that those seeking to run .charity are primarily motivated by profit.”

There have been eight complaints to the application by Donut, (using Cornlake LLC on its application), four of which argue that the domain name should not be run by a profit-making company. One is calling for Donut to be disqualified for being a cyber-squatter, and the other three are raising concerns about rights protection and safeguarding.

For Famous Four Media (Spring Registry on its application) there are eleven comments. The same four arguing that .charity should be run on a not-for-profit basis, and seven raising rights protections and safeguarding issues.

Icann said it took the decision to extend the deadline because it had received more applications for gTLDs than it expected.

In a statement on its website it said: “Icann received input from the community that this window should be extended to provide for the additional time needed to analyse and provide thoughtful comment on the significantly larger than 500 applications originally anticipated.”

Almost 2,000 applications were submitted to Icann between January and June, at a cost of $185,000 each. It is now evaluating applications. This is expected to be completed by 2013.

So far there have been more than 6,000 comments on applications.

There have been no comments on the Public Interest Registry’s application for .ngo or .ong. The PIR is a global non-profit organisation that already owns .org.

To search, view and comment on applications follow this link.

Directory: National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO)
Who's Who: Karl Wilding