Country and Territory Identifiers in New gTLDs Capacity Building Workshop for Africa GAC Representatives 23 January 2017 | Nairobi, Kenya

Background The use of Country and Territory Identifiers in New gTLDs has been considered by the ICANN Community from various angles: 2-letter Country codes as second-level domain names, may now be released provided registries implement a set of measures to avoid confusion www.ke.[gtld] Country and Territory Names as second-level domain names are reserved, unless certain conditions are met www.kenya.[gtld] 3-letter Country codes as top-level domain names were not allowed in the current round of New gTLDs www.[domain].ken

3-letter Country codes as top-level domain names www.[domain].ken 3-letter country codes are not available in current rounds of New gTLDs They are part of “country or territory names” defined as ISO 3166-1 Alpha-3 codes ISO 3166-1 Alpha-3 short and long-form names, translated in any language Other names with special status, on specific lists, or recognized by an IGO or treaty organization The Applicant Guidebook (Section 2.2.1.4.1) does not allow such name as New gTLDs Future use has been the subject of ICANN Community processes, in particular: The Cross Community Working Group on the Use of Country and Territory Names (CCWG-UCTN), which recently concluded its work inconclusively The GNSO New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Policy Development Process will consider potential changes to the Policy applicable to New gTLDs Several GAC Members have expressed interest in discussing the future use of 3-letter codes as TLDs

Country and Territory Names as 2nd-level domains www.kenya.[gtld] Defined by the New gTLD Registry Agreement (Specification 5, section 4) as: The short form in English of all country and territory names on the ISO 3166-1 list Names listed in the manual of the UN Group of Experts on Geographical Names The list of UN member states in the 6 official UN languages These names are reserved at the second level (and below) in all New gTLDs, unless: Registry Operator reaches agreement with the relevant government Registry Operator proposes their release subject to GAC review and approval by ICANN The GAC has established a list of country requirements for notification of request for use of their respective country and territory names (88 represented) 80% require notification, 10% require notification for all but Brand TLDs 10% do not require notification at all While some individual country or territory names have been released, requests for release of all such names by registries are still pending further processing by ICANN.

2-letter Country codes as second-level domains www.ke.[gtld] The New gTLD Registry Agreement (Specification 5, section 2) provides all 2-character labels should be reserved at the second level, unless agreement is reached with the related government, or release is approved by ICANN Since 2014 the GAC has advised the ICANN Board to ensure that processing of Registries requests by ICANN GDD takes into account governments’ concerns Governments participated in ICANN’s Authorization processes to a varying degree: Some were opposed to the use of their country code(s) in all New gTLDs Some in only certain TLDs Some had no concern regarding such use in all gTLDs Since 13 Dec. 2016, ICANN authorizes all 2-charcter country codes to be released in all New gTLD provided Registry Operators implement a set of measures to avoid confusion: Appropriate representations by Registrant in their Registration Policy Post-Registration complaint investigation Exclusive pre-registration period (optional) Engagement with the relevant GAC Members when a risk of confusion is identified (recommended)