.gop

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Status:	Proposed
Registry Provider:	Minds + Machines
Type:	Brand TLD
Priority #:	192 - Republican State Leadership Committee, Inc.

.gop is a Brand TLD being proposed in ICANN's New gTLD Program. The applicant is Republican State Leadership Committee, Inc.

Application Excerpts

"“GOP” is an acronym that stands for “Grand Old Party.” Both terms are popular alternative names for the 148 year-old Republican Party in the United States of America. The Republican Party is one of the two major political parties in the United States, and entities and individuals who identify with the GOP for business, political or personal reasons can be found world-wide.

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These agreements and policies are designed to ensure transparent and non-discriminatory policies for the registration of .GOP names; fair and competitive pricing; protection of personal data and privacy; adherence by registrars and registrants to the AUP; protection of trademarks, the names of natural and legal persons and other property rights; prevention of the registration of illegal terms; and the prevention violations of the law. Moreover, our policies promote competition among registrars, combat abuse of the DNS, address cybercrime, protect intellectual property rights, and align the .GOP top-level domain with applicable regulatory and legislative environments and Internet registry best practices.

These policies will effectively support the key mission, purposes and goals of the .GOP top-level domain, which is to allow registrants who want to associate themselves with, while at the same time protecting third-party rights and preventing abuse.

We specifically examined more restrictive registration policies, such as limiting registration to members of organizations with a specific tie to GOP. We rejected such limitations because they would interfere with .GOP’s primary mission, purpose and goal--which is to encourage as many registrants as possible to associate themselves with GOP for any legal purpose. Factors that we took into account when considering a more restrictive registration policy included:

Our recognition that registrants of a .GOP domain name will self-select because they have an interest in GOP, naturally reducing the number of potential registrants; and, because restrictive policies such as, for example, requiring membership in a specific organization or organizations, would exclude many legitimate registrants from obtaining a .GOP domain name. For example, and by way of illustration, if membership in an organization were required for registration, businesses and charitable organizations that would find a .GOP top-level domain name an effective marketing tool would be excluded from registering a .GOP domain name as they might not be eligible to be members in an organization that accepted only natural persons for membership.

With respect to protecting registrant privacy and confidential information, we will comply with all applicable ICANN rules, including Whois policies, and all applicable laws, rules and regulations of appropriate jurisdictions. Registrant privacy and use of confidential information are set forth in our Privacy & Whois Policy. Information concerning updates and changes to the Privacy & Whois Policy will be promptly and prominently displayed on the .GOP web site.

.GOP’s back-end registry services provider will also be required to employ industry-standard procedures to prevent the unauthorized or illegal access of registrant privacy or confidential information.

With respect to users, .GOP’s Registration Agreement will require that all registrants comply with any and all applicable laws, rules or regulations concerning user privacy and confidential information for applicable jurisdictions; failure to do so may result in suspension or loss of their .GOP name and may, in addition, result in legal actions by appropriate authorities."