.moscow

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Status:	Proposed
country:	Russia
Manager:	Foundation for Assistance for Internet Technologies and Infrastructure Development (FAITID)
Type:	geographical TLD
Key People
Dmitry Burkov, Chairman Matvey Alexeev, CEO

.moscow is a proposed new geographical TLD to ICANN's new gTLD expansion program. The application for .moscow TLD was submitted by the Foundation for Assistance for Internet Technologies and Infrastructure Development (FAITID), a non-profit organization dedicated in developing and implementing initiatives to increase the use of Internet in Russian community and internationally.

The .moscow (.москва) Project

The .moscow (.москва) project was initiated by the Coordination Center for TLD RU (CC for TLD RU), the registry operator of .ru ccTLD and .РФ IDN ccTLD in 2010. The center suggested that the application for the proposed .moscow and .москва TLDs should be administered by a special community council. Its official proposal to develop the TLDs was sent to the different local government agencies in Moscow on August 2010.

The Moskovskiy Komsomolets, one of the leading news paper in Russia conducted a survey on its website to gather the opinion of the citizens in Moscow regarding the .moscow (.москва) Project on September 2 until October 1, 2010. Thousands of citizens supported project including government agencies. The Moscow Department of Culture and Moscow Department of Support and Development of Small and Middle Entrepreneurship (DSDSME) expressed their willingness to participate in creating a Community Council that will handle the application for the TLDs with ICANN. The responsibility to manage the project was delegated to the Foundation for Assistance for Internet Technologies and Infrastructure Development (FAITD).

The .moscow (.москва) Project was presented during 2010 RIPE NCC Moscow Regional Meeting, ICANN 40 Meeting in San Francisco and during the ICANN 43 Meeting in Costa Rica. The initiative was also presented in different internet events and conferences as well as during the international domain forum in Bulgaria.

Application to ICANN

FAITD partnered with Sedari, a TLD business management service provider in preparing the application for the .moscow TLD with ICANN. According to FAITID Board Member Dmitry Burkov, the organization is confident with Sedari's expertise on TLD's and ICANN procedures. He said, "Implementation of any TLD is a complicated project with many issues to resolve. That’s why we’ve chosen Sedari as our strategic international partner for .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА. Sedari management has the experience and industry knowledge on ICANN that makes us confident the company is familiar with all the procedures of the corporation, in particular related to new TLDs. Together with Sedari we’ll make the project for Moscow top-level domains successful giving Russian users more choice in the domain name space."

FAITID confirmed that the application for the .moscow TLD had been submitted to ICANN on April 12, 2012. The organization said that the standard price for registration a .moscow domain name will be set at 600 Roubles (20$).

Supporters

As of May 2012, the .moscow (.москва) project received 17,666 signatures supporting it. Different government agencies and officials in Moscow also provided their respective letters of support including:

• Moscow Department of Support and Development of Small and Middle Entrepreneurship
• Moscow Department of Culture
• Minister of Moscow Government Artyom Ermolaev
• Moscow Government
• Department of Information Technology of Moscow
• Coordination Center for TLD RU
• Russian Association for Electronic Communications