November 9, comment period ended for the Draw proposal that defines the priority of the new top-level domains' introduction within the New gTLD Program.

The Draw is based on the lottery resulting each application to be assigned with a number indicating the time when it will be processed. According to the current proposal independently of the Draw results, the highest priority will be given to the IDN applications by default.

One of the comment on the Draw was submitted to ICANN by the Department of Information Technology of Moscow, the public authority officially supported applications for .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА TLDs. In the comment the Department urges ICANN to evaluate the possibility of giving a priority to .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА top-level domains as well as to all other geographical TLDs within the Draw proposal, as it is done for IDNs.

Department of Information Technology of Moscow explained its position using the following arguments:

1. GeoTLDs are supported by the relevant public authorities that officially represent a number of local communities (residents of the respective regions and cities).
2. Geographical TLDs will make visible contribution to the development of the Internet in the public interest as they are introduced for the needs of palpable communities.
3. There is a small number of applications for geographical domains comparing the total number of applications submitted within the first round of the New gTLD Program. That means prioritization of geoTLDs additionally to IDNs will not cause any appreciable delay in the implementation of the rest top-level domains.
4. Some geographical strings planned to be implemented both in ASCII and as IDNs. That is the case for .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА. For the community of Muscovites the TLDs are targeted at there would be much more clarity and transparency if both strings are launched at the same times – this may not happen if the Draw proposal gives a priority to IDNs only.

The full text of the comment of the Department of Information Technology of Moscow on the Draw proposal can be found at the ICANN website.