ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) adopted a resolution last week that released for registration two-letter domains that match country codes at the second level for new gTLDs (generic Top-Level Domains), eg cc.newgTLD. While this may open lucrative business opportunities for domainers and investors, it was not widely welcomed.

Some governments have been concerned about potential abuse of their national two-letter strings, ie registrants claiming to offer government approved websites for their own profit, etc. It is not without reason, since the new resolution hardly contains any checks and balances to address that.

Registries are not required to provide any exclusive pre-registration period for governments only, though they may choose to do so. The two measures that they should take are:

– registrants should agree they are not affiliated to governments and
– take steps to investigate and react to any reports from government bodies or national registries regarding activities that cause confusion with the respective country code.

Countries like Spain and Italy already secured the right to pre-approve the release of their domains .es and .it.
The first new domain names should be available from next year, but it seems it’d take some months for operators to implement the resolution.

This news is related to new gTLDs. To get more background, go to the post on: <What you Need to Know about New Domain Extensions>.