Daily Wrap: .PW To Be A “gTLD”, More gTLD Bids Withdrawn, Civil Society Meets At ICANN Toronto And gTLD Confusion

It’s been a while since we’ve had a Daily Wrap, but here we go. Directi is to relaunch .PW, the ccTLD for Palau next week at the ICANN meeting in Toronto with a sunrise period due to start in December, Domain Incite reports. The relaunch will see .PW branded as “professional web”.

Palau is ranked 197th in the world in area out of 251 countries and principalities with 459 square kilometres – twice the size of Washington DC, and 218th in population out of 238 – 21,032 people, according to the CIA World Factbook.

And last week it was revealed two more gTLD applications have bitten the dust with .CIALIS and .CHATR being formally withdrawn. ELi Lilly & Co dropped its bid for .CIALIS and Rogers Communications withdrew its .CHATR application,” according to Domain Incite.

Public interest groups involved in ICANN will gather on 12 October in the leadup to the ICANN meeting in Toronto, Canada in an event called “ICANN & Internet Governance: Security & Freedom in a Connected World” sponsored by the Noncommercial Users Constituency (NCUC), the voice of civil society in ICANN, according to a post by Milton Mueller on the Internet Governance blog. “The policy conference will focus on key ICANN policy issues like the need to promote both cyber-security and human rights in the development of global internet policies.”

“The conference subtitle recognizes our shared twin goals of security and freedom, and questions to what extent must we sacrifice one for the other,” said meeting organizer Robin Gross whose organisation IP Justice is an NCUC member.

“Cyberspace is at a watershed moment. Global civil society, now increasingly recognised as an important stakeholder in cyberspace governance, needs to step up to the challenge,” Ron Deibert, one of the event speakers, said in a release reported on Intellectual Property Watch. “What is required is nothing less than a serious and comprehensive security strategy for cyberspace that addresses the very real threats that plague governments and corporations, addresses national and other security concerns in a forthright manner, while protecting and preserving open networks of information and communication.”

Other speakers include new ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé, Fiona Alexader from the US Department of Commerce and Wendy Seltzer, founder of the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse.

Panel topics include: Civil Liberties, Security and Law Enforcement; Controversial Top-Level Domain Names, Freedom of Expression and Intellectual Property Rights; The Changing Geo-Political Landscape of Internet Governance: Implications for ICANN; and Bringing Human Rights into ICANN’s Policy Development Process.

Meanwhile on gTLD Strategy, a blog post from Fairwinds Partners, there is a story on public confusion when new gTLDs come into being. The story notes a British electronics story Currys that has on its stories “Currys.digital.” The only applicant for .DIGITAL was Donuts. If successful, “it will be possible for the shop in the picture to go out and register the domain name Currys.Digital – but just because something is possible doesn’t necessarily mean it will happen.”

The article asks readers to “consider a scenario where Currys does not register its eponymous .DIGITAL domain name, but Boots, the well-known, UK-based pharmacy and drug store chain, applied for the .BOOTS gTLD. Imagine you’re a consumer and an average Internet user, walking down this street in London, and you see the sign that displays ‘Currys.Digital.’ Then, a short block later, you see a sign in the window of Boots that reads, ‘Visit us online at our new site: Pharmacy.Boots.’ Further up the road, there is another retailer whose name is SportsDirect.com.”