We recently blogged about whether any extensions of the new Top Level Domain (gTLD) names were likely to be banned in the UK. Nominet, which registers UK domain names, is still pondering the issue, but the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has leapt into action on an international scale by issuing initial block lists for second-level domains. None of the affected gTLD use the Roman alphabet; the blocks are directed at two Russian (meaning “.site” and meaning “.online”), one Arabic (meaning “.web”) and one Chinese (meaning “.games”) extension.
Under the terms of the block, the organisations chosen to run these gTLD names will be obliged to refuse to sell certain domain names. Addresses that contain string of gibberish or underscore characters will not be available for purchase by website owners. Many of the other ineligible website addresses are in the native language of the gTLD, suggesting they relate to trademarks or other words banned for some localised reason.
Several international trademark holders have managed to get in early with block requests to prevent incidents of top level domain squatting before gTLDs go on sale. The Chinese versions of Nokia.games, HTC.games and iPad.games are all reserved and cannot therefore be registered by web users. Similarly iPhone.site will be banned in Russian and Redbull.web in Arabic. What remains unclear however is if and when the trademark owners will be allowed to purchase these domains at any point in the future.
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