Donuts has filed a Request for Reconsideration appeal with the requirement to review the decision recently adopted by ICANN Corporation to tighten the registration rules for the new domain .DOCTOR. According to this rule, only people who have a degree in medicine and necessary qualifications can register a domain in the new zone, also only when they provide the necessary documents to prove it. Donuts is the main applicant for the .DOCTOR domain and the concern of the company is understandable. The thing is that ICANN’s decision goes against its previous policy and principles declared by the President of the company Fadi Chehade.
Representatives of national authorities, members of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) ICANN are the ones that want strict registration rules to be applied. According to them, uncontrolled registration in domains related to financial, medical, law and other services gives a lot of opportunities for fraud and puts users at risk. However, till now ICANN managed to bypass GAC’s objections. Usually in such new domains registrants had to assert that they possess necessary credentials when filling out the form. No professional credentials had to be shown.Moreover, Fadi Chehade reputedly noted that GAC members require more restrictions in relation to the new gTLDs, even though these restrictions do not exist in the ccTLDs. For example, registration of dentist.eu does not require showing professional credentials about being a dentist. So this is a weird requirement for those who want to register domains in .DENTIST gTLD.
This is why the decision of ICANN in relation to .DOCTOR is so surprising. Donuts quite rightly points out that domain .DOCTOR shouldn’t be considered as “professional” and it’s audience are not just physicians. Names here could be registered by scientists, PhD candidates, etc. Also a creative approach to name registration is possible, let’s say, computer.doctor or skateboard.doctor. ICANN’s decision completely rules out this possibility.
