Sometime
back, I wrote an
article about
the new scheme of allotment of Internet addresses proposed by ICANN
or Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Just to
recollect, what is an internet address? For those of the readers, who
are not very familiar about the way, internet space is being
controlled, I can start with the URL or address of my blog, which you
can see in the header of the browser. As you can see, my blog address
looks as http://www.akshardhool.com
and out of this address, the word comprising of last three letters is
called in internet language as “Top Level Domain” or TLD. This is
called as TLD, because, this is the first level lookout for my blog,
when any computer connected to internet starts searching for my blog.
In the present scheme of things, only 3 letter generic words like
com, org, net or country specific words like .ind are allowed by
ICANN.
ICANN
now wants to change this and wants to allot more words containing
more alphabets for TLD. Considering the growth of internet, this is
not a bad thing at all. For example if all search engines like
google, yahoo or bing have the same TLD such as .search or all blogs
have a TLD such as .blog, it could bring much order and simplicity in
the internet space. Unfortunately, instead of doing this, ICANN wants
to allot now generic TLD words to individual applicants by
auctioning them. These generic Top level domains or in short form “
gTLD's ” have now become source of much heated debate and
controversy. Firstly, it was soon realized that allotment of generic
words like book, pizza, beauty to individual applicants would give
unfair advantages to applicants, for all time to come and therefore
should be avoided.
Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), set the ball
rolling in January 2012 for the global expansion drive, inviting
applications from interested parties. Applicants from all over the
world applied to ICANN for allotment of hundreds of such gTLD's to
them. However some countries, including India are now rightly
opposing allotments of certain words being alotted as gTLD's.
These
words, which are being opposed, are not the type of words, which
could give unfair advantage to the applicant, particularly commercial
undertakings in future. Rather than that, they refer to religion,
communities or could be considered as leading to potentially
sensitive or problematic areas in future.
The
Indian government has objected to applications for the allocation of
a few gTLDs, like ‘Bible,’ ‘army,’ ‘navy’ and ‘air
force.’ Government also does not like two other Hindi/Urdu words,
‘shiksha’ and ‘halal’, which mean education and a process of
preparing food as stipulated in Muslim scriptures. Indian Governemnt
also does not like the gTLD asked by Indian company Reliance India,
who had applied for the gTLD as (.indians).
It is
also showing red signal for words, .ram, .islam because under a
Section of the Indian Trade Mark Act, that states a mark “shall not
be registered if it contains or comprises any matter likely to hurt
the religious susceptibilities of any class or section of the
citizens of India.
ICANN’s
Governmental Advisory Committee says that if an application is seen
as potentially sensitive or problematic by one or more governments of
the world, it does not constitute a formal objection and need not
directly lead to a process that can result in rejection of the
application. It advices the concerned applicant that they should
hold discussions with the respective governments and try to address
their concerns. Only after that they can inform ICANN that they wish
to withdraw their applications.
This
soft peddling of controversial issues by ICANN does not appear to be
a prudent idea at all. This is the time to act and they must finely
scrutinize each and every gTLD, before alloting it. It there are
objections, that gTLD should not be alotted at all till the person
raising the objection is satisfied. ICANN appears to have acted in
this fashion in case of Reliance India. Official viewpoint of ICANN
as posted on their website says: “An exclusive right granted to a
private company could be against the public interest of the Indian
community. This gTLD should be managed by the Indian government for
the interest of all members of the community, including private
companies.” The web site also refers to trade mark laws, and says:
“ the term Indian denotes a geographical region in relation to
goods and services, and it is also used extensively to represent
products and services from India. Therefore it should belong to the
Indian community as a whole.”
All
internet users would like to see this kind of clear thinking and
positive action from ICANN on these sensitive issues. If this is not
done right now, the new internet addresses are going to face plenty
of rough weather for sure.
13
December 2012
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