.慈善

Status:	Proposed
Language:	Chinese (Hans/Simplified)
Translates to:	charity
Manager:	Zodiac
Registry Provider:	KNET
Type:	IDN gTLD
Category:	Commerce
PIC Submitted:	yes, Download Here
More information:

.慈善 is an IDN gTLD being proposed in ICANN's New gTLD Program. The applicant is Zodiac (Excellent First Limited).

GAC Warning & PIC

The application was issued a GAC Early Warning from the representative of Australia and GAC Chair, Heather Dryden. The warning system is noted as a strong recommendation on behalf of national governments to the ICANN Board that a given TLD application should be denied as it stands. Applicants are encouraged to work with objecting GAC members.

The warning states that the TLD refers to a regulated market but that the applicant has not provided for adequate measures to protect from consumer harm.

The applicant subsequently submitted a Public Interest Commitment, which in part states that the applicant will publish its Registration Policy prior to the launch of the TLD and subject it to a public comment period.

IO Objection

ICANN's Independent Objector (IO) filed a Community Objection against the .慈善 string. The IO is an appointed authority on international law whose role is to object to strings on the grounds of Community harm and Limited Public Interest were detailed in the applicant guidebook. His objections are official objections and are funded by ICANN, though his office is otherwise independent. Reasons for the specific case against .慈善 were not initially given, but the community objection generally argues that the TLD faces opposition or is contrary to a significant portion of a community which it purportedly aims to serve. The IO must determine: That the community is a clearly delineated community; that there is a strong association between the community and the string applied for; there is a strong association between the segment of the community on whose half we objects and the string itself; and he must determine that the TLD would produce a significant material detriment to this sizable portion of the community.

He also objected to two applications to the related .charity string.

Application Details

Excerpted from Response to question #18 in TLD application:

"Zodiac Holdings Limited (“Zodiac”) was founded and incorporated in Cayman Islands by James Seng in 2008 in anticipation of the launch of the ICANN new gTLD program. Currently, it is headquartered in Hong Kong and has an operation center in Beijing, China. The team consists of experienced veterans in the global and China domain name industry like James Seng and former China Network Information Center (CNNIC) employees such as Eugene Li.

James Seng is one of the Internet pioneers in Singapore and is widely recognized as an international expert in numerous Internet areas. He is well known as the inventor of IDN and has co-chaired the IDN Working Group in IETF from 1999 to 2004, leading to the standardization of IDN. Eugene Li, is the former Vice President of China Network Information Center (CNNIC). During his 7 years tenure at CNNIC, Eugene has launched initiatives that doubled domain name registrations and helped CNNIC become the no. 1 ccTLD and no. 2 TLD by volume. At the time when Eugene left to join Zodiac, CNNIC has over 13 million domain name registrations.

Under the vision and leadership of James Seng, with the support of angels, venture capital firm and family offices of approximately USD 20 million in place for the application and operation of the new gTLDs, Zodiac is seeking to become the first and largest privately held ICANN-approved TLD registry operator in Asia. It intends to operate TLDs that are centric to the Chinese culture.

[..]

[.慈善], pronounced as “ci shan” means “charity” in Chinese. Charity is becoming more prominent in China over the past few years. Both global and local charities like Red Cross and the ONE foundation headed by the famous movie star Jet Li are already here. Even the Internet is leveraged to promote charity as evidenced by webpages on Weibo.com (China’s most popular micro-blogging website) and Baidu.com (China’s most popular search engine)."

Governmental Advisory Committee. Considers and provides advice on the activities of ICANN as they relate to concerns of governments, particularly matters where there may be an interaction between ICANN's policies and various laws and international agreements or where they may affect public policy issues (ICANN Bylaws).

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