The .Sport Top Level Domain

ICANN publishes the draft 'Applicant Guidebook' for new generic top-level domains

DotSport — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:31:00 +0200

A draft 'Applicant Guidebook' for new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), is now available for review and comment at http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtld-comments-en.htm. The draft Guidebook provides information for those interested in applying for new generic top-level domains.

"Since ICANN was founded 10 years ago, one of the foundational principles has been to support competition and consumer choice in generic top-level domains. That competition is meant to promote innovation and enhance user choice and satisfaction" said Dr Paul Twomey, ICANN's President and Chief Executive Officer.

"The Internet has produced great openness and innovation that has led to changes few of us imagined. The effect of opening up the top-level of the domain system will enable more innovation and entrepreneurial applications" he said.

"One huge area of potential innovation will be applications for names that are in non-Roman characters, or Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). Currently there are only 21 generic top-level names and they are all in characters that look like English. There are 1.5 billion Internet users and many non-English speakers will have the opportunity to express the whole of a domain name in characters that look like their language," Dr Twomey said.

The draft Applicant Guidebook and accompanying material will be made available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish according to ICANN's translation policy. The modules contain information on the evaluation fee, the application process and evaluation criteria, as well as background material.

Designed to accompany the draft Applicant Guidebook is a set of Explanatory Memoranda that are intended to assist understanding of the implementation work for new gTLDs. In addition, two new papers: "Cost Considerations of the new gTLDs Program" and "Summary of Changes to Base Agreement for New gTLDs" are also being released and complete the explanatory memoranda.

Amongst the 6 modules and over 200 pages of the draft Guidebook and Memoranda, some key areas of interest are:

How contested strings (or names) will be determined;
How applications for geographic names will be considered;
Technical requirements for new names that encompass internationalized domain names;
The rights of intellectual property holders;
How morality and public order objections can be raised;
The cost of the evaluation process and how it is constructed.

There will be two comment periods of 45 days each. Every Government in the world is being sent a letter to draw their attention to the draft and the draft Guidebook remains subject to further consultation and revision.

"There has already been robust discussion and consultation regarding many phases of the new gTLD implementation plan, but this is the first opportunity to consider the application and evaluation processes as a whole," Dr Twomey said. "There's been a lot of thought involved in producing the draft Guidebook and we've used best practice and outside experts to assist us in developing the application process. Now is the time for close scrutiny, questions and input that will shape the end result and make it stronger," he said.

DotSport interview with DomainesInfo

DotSport — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0200

The french newsletter DomainesInfo has published an interview with DotSport founder Patrick Vande Walle on the present and future of the .SPORT domain

The International Herald Tribune on new Top Level domains

DotSport — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 20:08:00 +0200

The International Herald Tribune has published today an article on the new Top Level domains, mentioning the .sport initiative.

.Sport presentation at EGENI - Paris

DotSport — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:30:00 +0200

The presentation made this morning at EGENI Paris is here

.Sport on Twitter

DotSport — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:03:00 +0200

Follow the day to day life of .sport. We are now on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/dotsport

Discover .SPORT at EGENI Paris - 20th June

DotSport — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:09:00 +0200

The annual EGENI event in Paris will take place on the 20th June 2008, right before the ICANN meeting, at the same venue.

We will take this opportunity to present the .SPORT project. It is your chance to discover what is behind .SPORT and how you can help make it happen.

Press Release - Announcing .SPORT

DotSport — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0200

Luxembourg, Luxembourg - 16 June 2008

The DotSport^® Consortium announced today the launch of a proposal to create .sport top level domain on the Internet. It is expected that ICANN, the organization allocating new top level domains on the Internet will launch a call for proposals for new top level domains in Fall 2008.

The vision of the DotSport^® Consortium is to create a globally visible domain that embodies the different actors of the sport community. Sport is a nearly universal value, associated with the physical development of human beings, with competition and performance. It benefits from a positive image in all cultures.

The sport community is large and global. It ranges from top international associations to millions of large and small sports clubs all over the world. Sports is also a large industry, ranging from individual and collective sporting equipment to media groups. The .sport domain can be naturally used by individuals, businesses, organisations as well as community groups, promoting a diverse and dynamic community within the .sport namespace. This matches well and is consistent with the multicultural and vibrant community in sport.

“Sport” is also a word used in many languages. throughout the world. This makes the domain name truly international and able to cross cultures and languages, just like sport itself. A dedicated domain can help cement a common identity that will be reinforced by the reinvestment of registry proceeds into programs using sports for the development of less favoured regions in the world. Further, the fact that the “sport” word and context in nearly ubiquitous will help cement this identity and strong visibility.

The DotSport^® consortium is looking forward to collaborate with the sport community actors to make this domain name a success. Several sport federations have already indicated their eagerness to see a specific top level domain.

"We see this as a major opportunity to launch a successful top level domain. The possible uses are endless for the sport community", says Patrick Vande Walle, a veteran Internet expert and founder of the DotSport^® consortium,

Press contact information: Anne Deschuyteneer (anne@dotsport.info)

Welcome !

DotSport — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:54:00 +0000

Welcome to the world of .Sport !

The DotSport® Consortium intends to run the generic top level domain (gTLD) .sport of the Domain Name System of the Internet. We will work towards having .sport included in the root zone according to the rules set forth by ICANN and be delegated the management of this gTLD.

While current gTLDs tend to focus on a vertical groups (e.g. commercial entities, network providers, organisations, museums, cooperatives, etc.) or regional groups within the global Internet, .sport will embrace a horizontal perspective, with a clear brand to reach and enrich the broad global community. Unlike country code TLDs also, which target a local audience, .sport will allow the user to express a international community relevance.

The sports community is large and global. It ranges from top international associations to millions of large and small sports clubs all over the world. Sports is also a large industry, ranging from sporting equipment to media groups. The .sport domain can be naturally used by individuals, businesses, organisations as well as community groups, promoting a diverse and dynamic community within the .sport namespace.

“Sport” is also a word used in many languages. When we looked at the Wikipedia page on sport, we noticed that 26 languages used the exact word «sport» in Roman script. So, unlike other top level domains which are mostly meaningful in the English language,.sport aims at reaching across borders, cultures and languages, true to the values of the sports community. In fact, more than 1.4 billion people use the word "sport" daily.

For more details, jump to the Most Asked Questions page.