Hello everyone I wanted to refer back to our call this morning (Australia time) to provide some more examples about the nature of generic words that are also used for important geographic terms. I used three examples this morning which relate to our major river systems which is not dissimilar to the Amazon River example where the rivers flow through different states. In my example, the Murray, Darling & Murrumbidgee rivers are all significant geographic features. The first two are named after people; the third an Aboriginal word in the Wiradjuri language. The Murrumbidgee River flows through several distinct areas of Aboriginal land and forms part of the Murray River system. We could extend the analysis by including Mount Kosciuszko National Park which includes our highest mountain (and from which the Murrumbidgee flows.) Again, named after a real person (whose name likely doesn’t fit as a good TLD label!) but, nonetheless, is one of our most significant geographic identifiers. IF we were to conclude that a broader bucket of geographic identifiers (like rivers and places) were to somehow be constrained/limited/banned what purpose would that serve? For example, if the Aboriginal communities that live along the river and identify with that region, why wouldn’t they be welcome to apply for the name? The same could be said of landowners (like I was), tourist enterprises, naturalists, national parks, might also want to create a new “community” top level domain that they can use. The same could be said of the Murray/Darling examples. There are many many other examples that this group could come up with which shows the way in which humans name geographic features that are intrinsic parts of their culture. From my personal perspective expanding any limitations on what applicants can apply for is a negative idea. Instead, we need to work towards enabling the expansion of the domain name space to suit end users. And most importantly, we need simple steps (I think we need some schematic to show how this could work in practical evaluation) to understand how to deal with contention and to resolve that contention efficiently and fairly. Liz …. Dr Liz Williams | International Affairs .au Domain Administration Ltd M: +61 436 020 595 | +44 7824 877757 E: liz.williams@auda.org.au<mailto:liz.williams@auda.org.au> www.auda.org.au<http://www.auda.org.au> Important Notice This email may contain information which is confidential and/or subject to legal privilege, and is intended for the use of the named addressee only. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not use, disclose or copy any part of this email. If you have received this email by mistake, please notify the sender and delete this message immediately.