Taiwan gTLD Policy and Regulation

1. 4/2/2015 Electronic Commerce & Law Report
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Electronic Commerce & Law Report™
Source: Electronic Commerce & Law Report: News Archive > 2015 > 04/01/2015 > News > New Top­Level Domains:
Taiwan Clarifies gTLD Regulations; Businesses May Apply in Next Round
20 ECLR 484
New Top­Level Domains
Taiwan Clarifies gTLD Regulations;
Businesses May Apply in Next Round
By Lien Hoang
March 24 – A state agency in Taiwan has approved rules allowing companies to apply
for generic top­level domains (gTLDs), clarifying an omission that may have made
such applications illegal previously, a source told Bloomberg BNA.
Under the proposed regulations by Taiwan's National Communications Commission,
businesses could own websites ending with their names instead of ending with .com.
For example, Eva Air would be permitted to operate flights.eva instead of (or in addition to) flights.com, as
part of an application to own the entire .eva string — a so­called “brand TLD”.
Commission adviser Kenny Huang told Bloomberg BNA on March 24 that the changes now await approval
by the Executive Yuan, the administrative arm of Taiwan's government, which wants to liberalize website
registrations.
Existing Taiwanese law does not explicitly make it illegal for companies to own gTLDs. But Huang, who
helped Taipei with its registrations, said laws that are nearly two decades old allow only non­profits to
register such domain names. The amendments would add clarity and bring businesses under this legal
umbrella.
“For new gTLDs, the government should more loosely control it,” Huang said.
Preparing Businesses for Round Two
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers revealed on June 13, 2012 that it had received
1,930 applications in its first new gTLD round (17 ECLR 1093, 6/20/12). Three of those applicants came
from Taiwan: phone maker HTC, Acer Computer and the Taipei city government — which registered .taipei
and the Chinese characters for “government.”
The second round of gTLD applications has not yet been announced. ICANN Global Domains Division
president Akram Atallah said Oct. 13 that current plans call for launching a new round in 2017 or 2018 (19
ECLR 1366, 10/22/14).
First round new gTLD applications cost $185,000 upfront, plus an annual fee of $25,000 once certain
transactional thresholds are crossed.
Huang said the city wanted to own .taipei to make the name more widely known globally. Similarly, he
thinks the availability of website names ending in .com is limited, so companies will want to brand
themselves with new strings.
“That will allow the business to take off,” he said. “The purpose of the new gTLDs is to promote the
business.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Lien Hoang in Ho Chi Minh City at correspondents@bna.com
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Joseph Wright at jwright@bna.com
Contact us at http://www.bna.com/contact/index.html or call 1­800­372­1033
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