Chinese registry Guangzhou YU Wei Information Technology Co has withdrawn two applications for geographic gTLDs. These are domains .深圳 and .广州, that respectively mean “Shenzhen” and “Guangzhou” – names of two large Chinese cities.
According to ICANN rules, a prerequisite for registration of new geographic top-level domains is the support or at least the absence of objections from the Government and territories’ local authorities, which names are used in the domain name. In this case they obviously failed to gain this support, because ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee has issued official advice against both of the domain names.
It is somewhat puzzling that earlier on two other Guangzhou YU Wei Information Technology Co applications for geographic domains .佛山 и .广东 (Foshan and Guangdong respectively – names of other large Chinese cities) have successfully past the Extended Evaluation period. Why they haven’t caused any complaints from GAC remains unknown.
