.广州

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Status:	Proposed
country:	Guangzhou, China
Language:	Chinese (Hans/Simplified)
Registry Provider:	CNNIC
Type:	IDN GeoTLD
Priority #:	104

.广州 is an IDN geoTLD being proposed in ICANN's New gTLD Program, which refers to the Chinese region of Guangzhou. The applicant is Guangzhou YU Wei Information Technology Co., Ltd., and it has partnered with Zodiac.

The application was issued a GAC Early Warning by China. 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 applicant is applying for a Geo TLD without government support, and that the string can therefore not be delegated.

Application Details

Excerpted from applicant response to question #18 in TLD application:

"Guangzhou Yuwei Technology Co. Ltd (“The Applicant”) was incorporated in China on February 27th of 2012 with a registered capital of RMB 50 million. It is officially appointed and endorsed by the Guangdong provincial government with mission and purpose of applying for the relevant geographic gTLDs upon the launch of the ICANN new gTLD program and subsequently operating and managing these geographic gTLDs. The vision for the Applicant is to become of the first few stakeholders in the China Internet space, and also the global Internet space to manage and operate geographic TLD and through the TLD, serve the general Chinese public’s interests and promote the culture and brand of the Guangdong region via the Internet. Guangdong province is the most populous province in China, registering about 104 million residents. Its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2011 reached about RMB 5300 billion (USD 841 billion), an increase of 10% from last year. This is the highest among all provinces of China. The province contributes approximately 12% of China’s national economic output and is home to the production facilities and offices of a wide-ranging set of multinational and Chinese corporations. The Applicant has chosen Zodiac Holdings Limited (“Zodiac”) as its partner to run the business operations of the registry. 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.

[..]

The Applicant’s vision for “.STRING” is to be a flag bearer of IDN geographic city gTLDs in China’s Internet space. Because of the special conditions governing geographical TLDs application under ICANN, and China (city, province and country level approval required), the introduction of “.STRING” will be heavily supported and valued by the China government.

[..]

Prospective registrant of “.STRING” domain names will be required to demonstrate a local presence in the STRING area."