Changes to the Draft Policy as a Result of the Public Consultation and other Recommendations

Hierarchical 2LD names appearing at the third level

Some of the existing 2LD hierarchical names (com, net, gov, edu, org) are also registered at the third level. It should be clear from article 3.2 of the proposed draft Domain Name Registration Policy that the names com.mt; org.mt; net.mt; edu.mt and gov.mt are existing 2LD names under which 3LD names may be registered. However, in order to avoid any possible ambiguity, an additional qualifier is inserted in article 5.2 as follows (addition shown in bold):

5.2 All current Holders of duly registered 3LD names as on the Legacy date (referred to as Legacy Holders of Legacy 3LD names) will automatically have the corresponding 2LD name blocked for a period of 3 years from Launch date (i.e. up to the Cut-off date) free of charge, provided that the Legacy Holder continues to renew the corresponding legacy 3LD name during this period. A blocked domain name is not an active domain name. No one, except the corresponding Legacy Holder, can register a blocked domain name. E.g. the Holder of myname.com.mt as on the Legacy date will have myname.mt automatically blocked up to the Cut-off date. For the avoidance of doubt, Holders of Legacy 3LD names having the Registered Label com, org, net, edu or gov shall not have their corresponding 2LD name blocked and shall not be entitled to register this.

Resolving Conflicts through Court of Law decision

The suggestion that 2LD name conflicts may be resolved through a court of law decision is in principle a good idea. However, the conflicts should not be resolved on the basis of the type of entity registering the domain name. In order to allow for the possibility of resolving conflicts where there are legal grounds to do so, article 5.1 of the Terms of Conditions is being modified to the following (change is shown in bold):

5.1 Any dispute over the rights to use a particular domain name between you and any third party after the proposed domain name has been registered and/or disputes on conflicting domain names should be settled between you and the third party in question using any of the ordinary remedies afforded by law. We shall in no manner adjudicate on any disputes.

Information campaign on Search Engine Optimisation with two Domain Names pointing to the same website

NIC(Malta) will include information on its website dealing with the best way to handle Search Engine Optimisation when two domain names point to the same website.