| gTLD | Full Legal Name | E-mail suffix | Detail | | .spa | Asia Spa and Wellness Promotion Council Limited | tld.asia | View |
Following from #20b “Relationship and Appropriateness of the Selected TLD string with the Community”, the selected TLD string “spa” perfectly matches with the name as well as the philosophy of the spa and wellness community.
1. Name
“Spa” is the name for which the community is commonly known by others. Almost all the associations in the community uses the word “spa” as a distinctive element in its name. The activity or its facilities are sometimes known as “bath” or “springs” (more common in the past), but in the present day, the predominant trend is to use the name “spa”.
The community often identifies itself as the “spa and wellness” community. The Registry has studied the different possibilities for representing the community with a TLD string, including for example, .spa, .well, .wellness, .saw, etc. None of the alternatives come close to the choice of “.spa” as a short, representative and meaningful representation of a key distinctive spirit and cohesion describing the community.
2. Identify
The applied for string: “spa” closely describes the community and the community members. Almost all the associations in the community uses the word “spa” as a distinctive element in its name. Many members of the community, i.e. spa operators and providers include or integrate the word “spa” in its own company name, and almost all of them include the word “spa” in the description of their business.
Based on research conducted by the Registry, we are aware that the string “spa” is also used in three other contexts:
- the municipality of Spa in Belgium
- the short form of ʺSocietà Per Azioniʺ means “stock corporation” in Italy and is often denoted in the short form: ʺS.p.A.ʺ
- the short form of ʺSpondyloarthropathyʺ, a medical term for any joint disease of the vertebral column
While the municipality of Spa in Belgium was likely the inspiration of the use of the term “spa” in its present day meaning as a generic description, the .spa TLD is not intended to serve the town of Spa in Belgium. The registry is also aware of the use of the term “S.p.A.” to mean ʺSocietà Per Azioniʺ (i.e. stock corporation) in Italy, as well as a short form of the medical term “Spondyloarthropathy”. Neither of which is associated with the use of the term “spa” in its most accepted meaning and the meaning for which the .spa TLD intends. Furthermore their usage is significantly less prevalent than the use of the term “spa” in its present day generic descriptive meaning. As such, the registry does not believe that the use of the term over-reaches substantially beyond the community.
Further explanation is provided in 4. Uniqueness below and further policies to mitigate its use for other possible designations are further discussed in #20e, #22 and #29.
3. Nexus
Most people inside and outside the spa community refer to spas and the spa community with the word “spa” as a distinctive descriptor. The location for which a member of the community operates is called a spa; a member of the community is often called simply a spa or in a more industrial descriptor a spa operator; and, products and services of members of the community are described as spa products and spa services. All of which utilizes the word “spa” as a distinctive element.
The word “spa” is the noun that the typical community member would naturally be called in the context. The term “spa” is not excessively broad and relates to the primary community of about 40,000 spas around the world, along with the community organizations, whose members are generally these operational spas.
4. Uniqueness
According to historians, the word spa has been a generic description since at least 1596 or perhaps as early as in the 1300s. The global public in general would refer to the word “spa” in its meaning as offered by the Dictionary.com:
1. a mineral spring, or a locality in which such springs exist.
2. a luxurious resort or resort hotel.
3. health spa.
4. a hot tub or similar warm-water hydromassage facility, usually for more than one person.
5. New England . soda fountain.
And Wikipedia (http:⁄⁄en.wikipedia.org⁄wiki⁄Spa):
“The term spa is associated with water treatment which is also known as balneotherapy. Spa towns or spa resorts (including hot springs resorts) typically offer various health treatments.”
Understanding that the string “spa” is being used in other contexts, the Registry has done further research to assert that the word is predominantly used in a general point of view with the meaning as associated with the spa community.
In order to establish that the term “spa” is used on the Internet predominantly with the meaning for which is associated with spas as in places offering water treatment and holistic body, mind and spirit revitalization sessions, the following basic search exercise was conducted at the Google search engine:
Searching the keyword: “spa” minus “-belgium” in Google returned about 4,020,000,000 results;
Searching the keyword: “spa” minus “-italy” in Google returned about 3,880,000,000 results;
Searching the keywords: “spa” and “health” in Google returned about 537,000,000 results;
Searching the keywords: “spa” and “Belgium” in Google returned about 108,000,000 results;
Searching the keywords: “spa” and specifying “Italian” as the language in Google returned about 263,000,000 results;
Searching the keywords: “spa” and “Spondyloarthropathy” in Google returned about 168,000 results
Searching the keywords: “spa” and “soda fountain” in Google returned about 2,340,000 results
Based on the results, it can be seen that by taking away either “belgium” or “italy” as part of the search term, the total number of results returned (about 4 Billion) is significantly over the number if they were included as part of the search (about 100 Million). On further analysis of the results, for those even including the terms “belgium” or “italy” the results are predominantly related to spas as understood in general and as a designator identifying the community. Given that the town of Spa is relatively small with a total population of only around 10,000, and that the origins of the use of the word “spa” in its present day meaning relates to the town’s own spas, the Registry believes that it should not take away from the fact the only significant meaning of the term “spa” is the one for which the Registry intends to promote.
The use of “S.p.A.” as a short form for the Italian form of stock corporation: ʺSocietà Per Azioniʺ is also relatively much less prevalent than the word as intended for the spa community. Furthermore, a more proper and popular way of denoting the form of corporation is “S.p.A.” with the periods included. While this is an important usage of the string “SpA”, the Registry believes that it should not take away from the significant meaning of the word “spa” in its intended use for the spa community as a TLD. Furthermore, additional preventive measures can be put in place to mitigate against any concerns for abusive utilization of the TLD in this manner.
The use of “SpA” as a short form for the medical term “Spondyloarthropathy” is not popular among the general public (with only 168,000 results returned). As this is a very specialized use of the term for the medical profession, the Registry does not believe that it represents a significant over-reach.
Finally, the use of “spa” for soda fountains can be understood as an adaptation, from its popular meaning as intended by the Registry, i.e. the element of a water spring. Therefore again, the Registry believes that this meaning does not form a substantive usage of the word and therefore should not be considered a significant over-reach beyond the community.
In summary, none of the other uses of the string “spa” carries another significant meaning in the common language used in the community and in the global general public as a whole.
| gTLD | Full Legal Name | E-mail suffix | Detail | | .ECO | Big Room Inc. | doteco.org | View |
RELATIONSHIP TO THE ESTABLISHED NAME OF THE COMMUNITY AND TO THE IDENTIFICATION OF COMMUNTY MEMBERS
The term “eco” has long been used to identify members of the Global Environmental Community (the Community), as well as concepts, products and services associated with the Community’s goal of a respectful, responsible and sustainable use of the environment. The term appears in common usage and is clearly associated by consumers with environmentally responsible practices.
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) offers the following examples:
Individuals and organizations (eg, eco-activist, eco-charities, eco-group)
Concepts (eg, eco-advocacy, eco-activism, eco-justice, eco-cultural, eco-historical, eco-literacy, eco-philosophy, eco-minded, eco-savvy, eco-awareness, eco-consciousness)
Products and services (eg, eco-product, eco-label, eco-house, eco-holiday, eco-resort, eco-bottle, eco-bulb, eco-forestry, eco-car)
(Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition, Mar. 2008; online version Sept. 2011)
Eco in Consumer Protection Public Policy
Consumer protection authorities around the world recognize the fact that the “eco” and “green” labels are powerful tools for consumer communication. Regulators agree that environment-related claims on products and services, including eco-, should only be used when qualifying information can be provided and⁄or the claim proven, including in the following policies: US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims; UK Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Green Claims Guidance & Advertising Standards Authority Codes; Environmental Claims: A Guide for Industry and Advertisers in Canada; Green Marketing & the Australian Consumer Law; and, European Union Guidelines for Making and Assessing Environmental Claims.
The UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection are also designed to safeguard against false environmental claims. The UN pro-consumer Guidelines are designed to protect consumers’ rights, especially those in developing countries, and to raise consumer awareness about the environmental impact of products and services “through such means as product profiles, environmental reports by industry, information centres for consumers, voluntary and transparent eco-labelling programmes and product information hotlines.”
Accordingly, the .ECO Community TLD will restrict .ECO domains to Community members and require registrants to complete and display a .ECO-profile. Without community restrictions and mandatory disclosures, a .ECO TLD could be construed as making environmental claims that would be impossible for consumers to verify.
Government-sponsored Research
Recent government-sponsored studies in the US and UK on consumer understanding clearly demonstrate that “eco,” “earth,” “environmentally-friendly” and to a lesser extent, “green” are commonly used and widely recognized by consumers to convey environmentally responsible practices.
Studies in the UK paid for by Defra show 70% of respondents were very familiar or fairly familiar with the term eco-friendly, being “explicitly linked to environmental issues, but only in as much as they show a product or claim broadly relates to the environment.” (DEFRA, “An Assessment of Green Claims in Marketing”, 2010; Consumer Understanding of Green Terms, 2011.)
Studies conducted as part of a 2010 review by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Green Guides also noted a convergence of green, and eco- ⁄ earth- ⁄ environmentally-friendly as the most common general environmental terms. (FTC, “Green Marketing Internet Surf”, 2008). The studies also confirm the potential for misuse of such terms: “unqualified claims that an item is ‘environmentally friendly’ or ‘eco-friendly’ are likely to convey that it has specific and far-reaching environmental benefits.”
Independent Research
In February 2012, Vision Critical, on behalf of Big Room, conducted a survey to understand public perception around the term eco and of the .ECO TLD in general.
The majority of respondents (58%) indicated they would expect domain names ending in .ECO (eg, anyname.eco) to be members of an environmental organization, professional association or have made a specific commitment to the environment. Only 10% indicated they would not expect an environmental connection, while 32% said they did not know. Two-thirds (67%) of respondents also indicated that they would expect a website that had a domain name ending in .ECO to contain environmental⁄ecological related information. Half (51%) said they would be, and 25% said they might be confused by a .ECO TLD not associated with the Community.
The survey was a random online Omnibus survey of 1,016 US adults from diverse ages, incomes, ethnicities and regions, conducted 15-16 February 2012 among a sample of Americans who are also Springboard America panel members. The margin of error, which measures sampling variability, is +⁄-3.10%, 19 times out of 20. The sample was balanced by age, gender and region according to the most recent American Community Survey (2009).
Academic References
The OED defines the prefix eco- as a shortened form of ecology (noun) or ecological (adjective). When eco is used as stand-alone word, it is defined as shortened form of ecological (adjective), with the meaning environmentally friendly.
The OED lists over 30 words beginning with the prefix eco-, all of which relate to combined form adjectives with the sense “ecological and – –” or nouns with the sense “ecological –”. Throughout the over 70 years of documented use in the OED, eco has always been associated with ecology or ecological concepts, never as a shortened or combining form for words such as economy.
Support for a comparable use of “eco” in French is provided by Dr Pascaline Dury’s bilingual corpus-based study of the migration of vocabulary from scientific to non-scientific use. Of the 21 lexical units that appear in the study’s French news corpus, “all of them are semantically-related to the field of ecology and can be easily defined.” (Dury, P. “The rise of carbon neutral and compensation carbone”. Terminology 14(2): 236, 2008.)
POTENTIAL CONNOTATIONS BEYOND THE COMMUNITY
The OED identifies the potential for “greenwashing,” defined as “disinformation disseminated by an organisation, etc., so as to present an environmentally responsible public image; a public image of environmental responsibility promulgated by or for an organisation, etc., but perceived as being unfounded or intentionally misleading.” (BSR &Futerra, “Understanding and Preventing Greenwash: A Business Guide”, 2009.) Misuse of the “eco” label can negatively affect Community interests by making people skeptical of environmental initiatives and impeding consumers’ understanding of the impacts of their buying decisions.
While “eco” has no significant meaning other than as a short form for environment⁄ecology, it infrequently occurs as an acronym. Known international acronyms and uses are:
European Communications Office (ECO): All European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrators (CEPT) divisions are housed as part of the CEPT website (www.cept.org⁄eco). There is no confusion anticipated between this usage and the .ECO TLD.
Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO): an intergovernmental regional group established by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey to promote economic cooperation in the region (www.ecosecretariat.org). As the focus is regional rather than global and on economic rather than environmental issues, there is no confusion anticipated between this usage and the .ECO TLD.
eco Association of the German Internet Industry: Confirmed in writing that it does not intend to apply for .ECO or object to Big Room’s .ECO application. See attached letter of non-objection in 20f (20d-eco-non-objection.pdf). There is no confusion anticipated between this usage and the .ECO TLD.