July 2013

U.S. STATEMENT ON GEOGRAPHIC NAMES IN ADVANCE OF ICANN DURBAN MEETING

The United States has listened carefully to the concerns expressed by
colleagues on certain geographic strings. It is our sincere hope that
individual governments can resolve their concerns on specific geographic
strings through agreements on specific safeguards negotiated with the
relevant applicants. We encourage all parties to continue to do so
leading to Durban. However, in the event the parties cannot reach
agreement by the time this matter comes up for decision in the GAC, the
United States is willing in Durban to abstain and remain neutral on
.shenzen (IDN in Chinese), .persiangulf, .guangzhou (IDN in Chinese),
.amazon (and IDNs in Japanese and Chinese), .patagonia, .yun, and .thai,
thereby allowing the GAC to present consensus objections on these
strings to the Board, if no other government objects.

The United States affirms our support for the free flow of information
and freedom of expression and does not view sovereignty as a valid basis
for objecting to the use of terms, and we have concerns about the effect
of such claims on the integrity of the process. We considered that the
GAC was of the same mind when it accepted ICANN’s definition of
geographic names in February 2011 and agreed that any potential
confusion with a geographic name could be mitigated through agreement
between the applicant and the concerned government. In addition, the
United States is not aware of an international consensus that recognizes
inherent governmental rights in geographic terms. Therefore, the choice
made in this discrete case does not prejudice future United States
positions within the ICANN model or beyond.

Recognizing that the current rules for the new gTLD program do not
specifically prohibit or condition these strings, we expect the specific
issue of how to better address individual government concerns as well as
other relevant considerations, including the free flow of information
and freedom of expression, in the context of geographic terms, to be
considered in the review of the new gTLD program as mandated by the
Affirmation of Commitments . This review hopefully will provide guidance
as to how better to address this issue in future rounds of new gTLDs.