.town

Status:	Delegated
Registry Provider:	Demand Media
Type:	Generic
Category:	Culture
PIC Submitted:	Download Here
More information:

.town is a proposed TLD in ICANN's New gTLD Program. The applicant is Donuts (Koko Moon, LLC). The proposed application succeeded and was delegated to the Root Zone on 11 April 2014.

The application was subject to 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. The warning states that .town is a generic geographic term and that Donuts has no sufficiently addressed how to protect geographic names at the second level.

Application Details

Many of Donuts' applications, including this one, seem to have been applied for using the same boiler-plate application in which the TLD is defined as a means of providing greater expression on the Internet and will be an open TLD without pre-registration policies. It notes its plans to adhere with all registration policies required by ICANN and its intent to have remediation and takedown policies clearly defined to fit within these requirements. Pre-registration verification will not be used and this as defined as causing "cause more harm than benefit by denying domain access to legitimate registrants." They intend to control abuse through "extensive user and rights protections."

Contract Signed

On 06 March 2014, Donuts received a Registry Agreement signed by ICANN for .town after passing all the required processes needed to become a Registry Operator for the string.

Delegation and Availability

.town was delegated to the Root Zone of the DNS on 11 April, 2014, completing the successful application for the string.

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).

Top-Level Domain