I was reminded of another such case today, thanks to the Government of India sending a letter (pdf) to ICANN reiterating its opposition to a couple strings.
The government is opposed to the delegation of .RAM. This is based on Lord Ram, a religious figure in Hinduism.
I certainly understand why the government would be sensitive to this. Until you know who is applying for it: Chrysler wants the domain name for its Ram brand of trucks.
That’s a perfect situation for India. Because it’s a .brand, Chrysler is going to be careful about not putting anything offensive on it.
A Business Standard article from June quotes a government official stating “What if someone registers a domain name such as www.sex.ram? It could create a lot of communal tension in the country.”
Indeed. Do you think Chrysler is going to set up a second level domain name sex.ram?
I doubt it.
Much like no one has to worry about risk management company Intertek, which owns Ram.com, using that domain in a way that’s offensive.
Hello Andrew,
I think the reason is that Chrysler is a for profit company that could go bankrupt or decide down the line after a number of years to no more maintain the gTLD. They possibly could then turn around and sell their rights to the gTLD to some registrar and then we will have all kids of names. I am amazed that finally the Indian Govt is moving. They missed out on .guru and .yoga
Same Sad Story
Interests of Humans must prevail on interest of corporations
https://domainnamewire.com/2013/12/10/hardheaded-governments-vs-amazon-com/
Compliments, congratulations, Maximum Respect to Indian Government.
These cross culture clashes are yet another reminder as to why the gtld’s will never manage to get off the ground and, ultimately, are all destined to fail for lack of consumer support and traffic leakage.