The two private companies seeking to run the .charity website address suffix have been issued with an early warning from the Australian member of Icann’s governmental advisory committee (GAC).

Corn Lake LLD and Spring Registry Ltd were both warned that they “did not appear to have proposed sufficient mechanisms to minimise potential consumer harm”. They both submitted applications to run the new .charity generic top-level domain (gTLD) name to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) last year. 

The GAC early warnings added that: “Without additional protections, this proposed top-level domain could result in misuse and consumer harm, and could result in damage to the trust that consumers and governments place in legitimate charities.”

Icann asked organisations to submit applications for various new domain names in January 2012 at a cost of $185,000 for each application. It had received nearly 2,000 applications for assorted domain names by the deadline in June when it published the list of applicants online. Members of the public then had until 26 September to comment on the applications. Icann held a draw last year to determine the order in which applicants will be assessed and processed. Corn Lake and Spring Registry Ltd are placed at 1,107 and 1,312 respectively.

These are two of 242 early warning notices in total. An early warning is a notice that the application is seen as “potentially sensitive or problematic”. It is not a formal objection but Icann recommends that the applicants contact the representative of the committee to resolve the issue.

Last year NCVO objected to the bids for .charity on the grounds that the companies were motivated by profit.

PIR anticipates 2014 launch for .NGO

Yesterday Fadi Chehadé, president and CEO of Icann announced that the first gTLDs were on course to be approved on 23 April 2013, although the launch of these new suffixes will depend on the new owners. 

The Public Interest Registry (PIR) is now accepting expressions of interest for the new .ngo/.ong web address suffix, anticipating that it will be able to launch them in 2014.

At the end of last year Icann held a draw to decide the order in which the 1,900 applications for the new generic top-level domain (gTLD) names would be processed. PIR’s two applications, .ngo and .ong, were drawn at 958 and 810.

PIR, the global non-profit organisation that already manages .org, now predicts that, as long as the applications pass the evaluation without any objections, it will be able to launch the new gTLDs from early to mid-2014. It is unopposed in applying for those names. It has also launched a survey seeking input on the new domains from non-profit organisations who might use them. 

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