Domain Incite reports that the ICANN Board of Directors passed a resolution concerning domain names that coincide with the names of countries/territories in the new generic top-level domains (gTLDs). From 2014 the corporation has received over 60 applications from registries to register such names. It should be noted that in this case we are talking about names that coincide with country names, not its two-symbol codes, for example, in the Russian case it would be Russia.xxx, not ru.xxx.
The Board instructed the corporation to “take all steps necessary to grant ICANN approvals for the release of country and territory names at the second-level”; however, with a serious condition – only if the government of the country gives its permission. This is a very important condition, which doesn’t allow to consider the decision to be “a green light” for country names, rather it’s “almost green”. The problem is that positions of countries’ representatives in the ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee differ greatly when it comes to this issue. Only 10 countries and territories stated that they give full permission to use their names as domain names in all new domains, those are the USA, the UK, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Ireland and also islands Guernsey and Pitcairn. Another 10 don’t mind registration of their names in dot-brands; however, they require notification when it comes to open domains. Around 70 countries (including Russia) insist that all domains need to be approved first. And, finally, the majority of the countries in the world haven’t made their mind when it comes to this issue at all.
It should be understood that the majority of the applications for country names actually did come from the dot-brands. The number of open gTLDs that expressed such desire is extremely low, and only two of them could be considered massive, these are .XYZ and .GLOBAL.
