Brussels, 07/10/2013 (Agence Europe) - On 28 September, ICANN, the US body that manages assigned names, decided to postpone the procedure delegating the strings “.wine” and “.vin”, much to the satisfaction of the European Federation of Origin Wines (EFOW) which, with the support of the European Commission, has strongly opposed attribution of such domain names.
ICANN has responded to the European Union arguments which opposed delegation of such strings without any measures being put in place to protect geographical indications. Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes, backed by Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos and Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier, wrote to ICANN on 12 September voicing her concern and called for the procedure to be suspended until agreement was reached between the candidates (see EUROPE 10924). ICANN has done as requested, noting that no agreement yet exists within the GAC (Governmental Advisory Committee, part of ICANN), suspending the procedure and announcing that a decision would be taken at its next meeting in Buenos Aires on 17-21 November. Three options are open to ICANN: it may decide to delegate the two strings and not protect geographical indications; it may not delegate the strings, which would mean that they would simply not exist; or it may delegate the “.wine” and “.vin” strings under certain conditions. This third option is one favoured by the Commission and the European wine sector. It would require an agreement between the wine sector and at least one of the three candidate companies. EFOW says it is pleased with ICANN's decision to delay delegation and has announced that it will again try to engage with the candidates to try to find a satisfactory solution for all by 17 November. (IL/transl.fl)