ICANN approves Red Cross and NGO reserved domain list (taking several LLL.gTLD names off the market)

ICANN, the governing body for the domain industry, has today released details of new policy which will protect the rights of several international organizations ahead of all others. The policy bans the sale of names under new gTLDs for keywords relating to the Red Cross and the IOC (Olympics), as well as any NGO or INGO who has been in their ear. The list includes several 3 and 4 letter names which match the acronyms of the organizations.

Also included in the policy were details of a claims service, similar to the current TMCH (trademark) claims service which notifies Trademark holders if a domain matching their trademark has been registered in a new gTLD and which usually occurs shortly after the gTLD is launched.

The policy comes into affect from the 1st of August 2018 and any domain name registered prior to this time will be allowed to remain with the registrant at that time.

The full list of names is available here and for more information on the policy see it in all its glory here.