22 Describe proposed measures for protection of geographic names at the second and other levels in the applied-for gTLD

Prototypical answer:

Although Alcon does not believe it will be an issue in connection with the .alcon gTLD, Alcon will take appropriate steps to insure that appropriate consideration is given to the interests of government or public authorities and geographic names. In this particular case, the .alcon gTLD is not believed to be similar or likely to be confused with any country, state, territory, region, city or like names or other variations thereon, or existing strings for country or territory names. Once the Registry Agreement is entered into, Alcon will take appropriate steps to assure that it can identify whether any applied for gTLD strings could cause potential conflicts with any geographic names and identify and consult with relevant governments and identify which relevant governments support may be required.

Given the fact that the Applicant is a multinational company, it has a vested interest in providing its visitors, clients and business partners a clear and predictable naming scheme in the .alcon TLD. Since visitors and clients are primarily looking for offers and activities organized by local ALCON branches and subsidiaries on the basis of their geographic location, the Applicant may indeed develop plans in order to register domain names that exclusively contain geographic names (country names, city names, names of regions, etc.).

However, if such domain names will be registered, the Applicant will do so considering the following confines:

(i) these domain names will be exclusively registered in the name of the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator or its Affiliates, and not in the name of a third party that is not controlled by the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator, unless agreed upon otherwise with the authority competent for giving its consent in accordance with Specification 5 of the Registry Agreement;
(ii) where consents are required prior to the registration and use of a domain name referred to and in accordance with Specification 5 of the Registry Agreement, the Applicant will obtain such consents before actually registering, delegating and using these domain names.

In any case the registration, delegation and use of domain names corresponding to geographic names will at all times be done in the best interest of:
- the Applicant; and
- in order to directly and indirectly promote local commercial activity in the geographic locations of which the name has been registered in accordance with (i) above.

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