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DOTASIA ORGANISATION ANNOUNCES BID TO ICANN FOR .ASIA SPONSORED TOP-LEVEL DOMAIN “.Asia” will be a regional home for Pan-Asia and Asia Pacific Internet users, businesses and organisations HONG KONG – 16 March 2004 – DotAsia Organisation Limited announced Tuesday that it submitted an application to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to operate a new sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) – “.Asia” – designed specifically to serve the Pan-Asia and Asia Pacific Internet community. “With over 60% of the world's population and over 90 languages, Asia is a community bound together by the tremendous economic, cultural and technical forces being unleashed by the liberalization of its markets,” said Che-Hoo Cheng, Interim CEO of DotAsia Organisation. “Since the Internet is central to these market changes, our mission is to sponsor, establish and operate a truly Asian Internet namespace that is dedicated to the needs of this dynamic community. For example, DotAsia will build on the pioneering Internationalised Domain Name efforts of its member ccTLDs for the benefit of the entire community.” DotAsia Organisation is a new membership-based not-for-profit registry that will tap experience from country code top-level domain (ccTLD) managers from the region in addition to input from leading Internet technical bodies and groups. Organisations which are supporting this initiative include: APNG - Asia Pacific Networking Group, APNIC - Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, ccTLD-ID - Country Code Top Level Domain Indonesia (.ID), CNNIC - China Internet Network Information Center (.CN), IUSN - Internet Users Society - Niue (.NU), JPRS - Japan Registry Service Co., Ltd. (.JP), KRNIC - Korea Network Information Center (.KR), MONIC - Macau Network Information Center (.MO), TWNIC - Taiwan Network Information Center (.TW), VNNIC - Vietnam Internet Network Information Center (.VN). DotAsia Organisation proposes to offer second-level domain registrations in the “.Asia” TLD (e.g.: dotasia.asia) and commits to working with the necessary standards groups to rollout standards-compliant internationalised domain names (IDNs) for the region. Those eligible to register a “.Asia” domain would be required to declare “proof-of-presence” stating that they are a legal entity within the Pan-Asia and Asia Pacific region. A Sunrise Period for trademark registration is also proposed. DotAsia Organisation plans to outsource technical registry services such as DNS resolution, WHOIS service, zone file generation, and day-to-day interaction with the registrar distribution channel to Afilias Limited. Afilias already supports over 4 million domain names including the fifth (.org) and sixth (.info) largest TLDs in the world and is a leading provider of back-end registry services. Organisations interested in becoming a member of DotAsia Organisation should visit www.dotasia.org for additional information. Background on the ICANN application process On 15 December 2003, ICANN released a request for proposals for the creation of new sTLDs. The application deadline to receive these proposals was 23:59 UTC 16 March 2004. An open public comment period is expected in April 2004 and will be accompanied by an independent evaluation panel. Those interested in voicing support for DotAsia Organisation's proposal should submit support letters to DotAsia Organisation or submit support comments through ICANN's public comment forum. About DotAsia Organisation Ltd. DotAsia Organisation Ltd. was formed in March 2004 in order to submit a proposal to ICANN for the operation of a new sTLD registry for the “.Asia” TLD. It is membership-based not-for-profit corporation located in Hong Kong and will, if approved, operate an Internet domain registry in the interests of the Pan-Asia and Asia Pacific Internet user community. For more information, please contact: Che-Hoo Cheng
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