Changes

==Reactions==

==Reactions==

Companies within the financial sector has varying reactions regarding the proposed .bank gTLD. Some believe that it will help curb incidence of domain name abuse. Avivah Litan, an analyst from Gartner said that a TLD dedicated for banks will provide more security because monitoring would be easier. Litan explained that under the [[.com]] TLD, anyone can register a domain name. On the other hand, Forrester Research marketing analyst Jeff Ernst said that several big banks are considering to apply for their own TLD registry while smaller banks are considering to use a .bank domain name.<ref>[http://www.americanbanker.com/btn/24_12/dot-bank-gets-mixed-reviews-1044372-1.html Dot Bank Gets Mixed Reviews]</ref>

Companies within the financial sector have had varying reactions regarding the proposed .bank gTLD. Some believe that it will help curb incidences of domain name abuse. Avivah Litan, an analyst from Gartner, said that a TLD dedicated to banks and banking will provide more security because monitoring would be easier. Litan explained that under the [[.com]] TLD, anyone can register a domain name. Forrester Research marketing analyst Jeff Ernst said that several big banks are considering applying for their own TLD registry, while smaller banks are considering using a .bank domain name.<ref>[http://www.americanbanker.com/btn/24_12/dot-bank-gets-mixed-reviews-1044372-1.html Dot Bank Gets Mixed Reviews]</ref>

=== Reaction from OSFI Canada===

===Reaction from OSFI Canada===

On November 13, 2009, the Office of the Superintendent of the Financial Institutions in Canada (OSFI) informed ICANN through a letter addressed to [[ICANN CEO]] [[Rod Beckstrom]] about the possible problems that will be faced by entities applying for a .bank gTLD in connection with Canada's Bank Act. Under the provisions of the regulation, any person is prohibited to use the word bank to indicate or describe a financial service other than banks regulated by OSFI. In lieu, the OSFI explained that any entity in Canada found using a .bank gTLD in violation of Canada's Bank Act will be required to abandon the domain name regardless of associated costs or expenses incurred. Furthermore, OSFI encouraged ICANN to consider the issue in connection with the possible introduction of .bank.<ref>[http://www.icann.org/en/correspondence/evanoff-to-beckstrom-13nov09-en.pdf OSFI Letter to Beckstrom regarding the proposed .bank gTLD]</ref>

On November 13, 2009, the Office of the Superintendent of the Financial Institutions in Canada (OSFI) informed ICANN through a letter addressed to [[ICANN CEO]] [[Rod Beckstrom]] about the possible problems in connection with Canada's Bank Act that would be faced by entities applying for a .bank gTLD. Under the provisions of the regulation, any person is prohibited from using the word bank to indicate or describe a financial service other than banks regulated by OSFI. In lieu, the OSFI explained that any entity in Canada found using a .bank gTLD in violation of Canada's Bank Act will be required to abandon the domain name regardless of associated costs or expenses incurred.<ref>[http://www.icann.org/en/correspondence/evanoff-to-beckstrom-13nov09-en.pdf OSFI Letter to Beckstrom regarding the proposed .bank gTLD]</ref>

===Concerns from European Banking Authority (EBA)===

===Concerns from European Banking Authority (EBA)===

On February 2012, the European banking Authority expressed its concerns to ICANN regarding the possible risks of proposed financial TLDs such as .bank and .fin. According to EBA chair Andrea Enria, consumers may not be properly guided through and assume that a particular operator of a particular under the .bank domain space is a regulated entity by a competent authority in their own country. Furthermore EBA is also concern of the possibility that true banks and other regulated entities need to spend significant amount of money to protect their trademarks from abuses and frauds. Enria also cited that the benefits in operating the proposed TLD is not yet established and there are still technical issues that needs to be discussed and resolved. EBA requested ICANN to ban any applications for the two proposed financial TLDs.<ref>[http://eba.europa.eu/cebs/media/Publications/Consumer%20Protection/EBA-BS-2011-197--EBA-Comments-on-Top-Level-Domain-Names--bank-and--fin-.pdf Comments of the European Banking Authority on the Planned Top level Domains .bank and .fin]</ref> <ref>

On February 2012, the European Banking Authority expressed its concerns to ICANN regarding the possible risks of proposed financial TLDs such as .bank and .fin. According to EBA chair Andrea Enria, consumers may assume that a particular operator of a particular site under the .bank domain space is a regulated entity by a competent authority in their own country. EBA was also concerned with the possibility that banks and other regulated entities would need to spend significant amounts of money to protect their trademarks from abuses and frauds. Enria also cited that the benefits in operating the proposed TLD is not yet established and there are still technical issues that needs to be discussed and resolved. EBA requested ICANN to ban any applications for the two proposed financial TLDs.<ref>[http://eba.europa.eu/cebs/media/Publications/Consumer%20Protection/EBA-BS-2011-197--EBA-Comments-on-Top-Level-Domain-Names--bank-and--fin-.pdf Comments of the European Banking Authority on the Planned Top level Domains .bank and .fin]</ref><ref>[http://domainincite.com/europe-to-warn-consumers-about-bank-risks/ Europe to warn consumers about .bank “risks”]</ref> <ref>[http://news.dot-nxt.com/2012/03/08/eba-dot-bank-warning EBA asks ICANN to scrap dot-bank]</ref>

[http://domainincite.com/europe-to-warn-consumers-about-bank-risks/ Europe to warn consumers about .bank “risks”]</ref> <ref>[http://news.dot-nxt.com/2012/03/08/eba-dot-bank-warning EBA asks ICANN to scrap dot-bank]</ref>

ICANN COO [[Akram Atallah]] sent a response letter to Enria and explained that the new gTLD program does not prohibit the application for the two possible gTLDs in question. Atallah also informed Enria about the available objections which can be utilized by EBA such as the string confusion objection, legal rights objection, limited public interest objection and community objection. In addition, he also cited the two the Governmental Advisory Committee may also provide an early warning or advice regarding the proposed new gTLDs. Furthermore, Atallah encouraged EBA to monitor the ICANN website until the closing period of the application process to determine the actual applicants for the .bank and .fin gTLDs and to work with them regarding their concerns on the use of the strings.<ref>[http://news.dot-nxt.com/sites/news.dot-nxt.com/files/atallah-to-enria-01mar12-en.pdf ICANN's Response to EBA]</ref>

ICANN COO [[Akram Atallah]] sent a response letter to Enria and explained that the new gTLD program does not prohibit the application for the two possible gTLDs in question. Atallah also informed Enria about the available objections which can be utilized by EBA such as the string confusion objection, legal rights objection, limited public interest objection, and community objection. In addition, he also cited that the Governmental Advisory Committee may also provide advice or an early warning regarding the proposed new gTLDs. Atallah encouraged EBA to monitor the ICANN website until the closing period of the application process to determine the actual applicants for the .bank and .fin gTLDs and to work with them regarding their concerns on the use of the strings.<ref>[http://news.dot-nxt.com/sites/news.dot-nxt.com/files/atallah-to-enria-01mar12-en.pdf ICANN's Response to EBA]</ref>

==References==

==References==