Following the conclusion of the first round of applications to ICANN for the creation of new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs), ICANN has published the “Early Warnings” of objections from governments.

The greatest number of “Early Warnings” were received from the government of Australia, which objected to a suite of generic names on the grounds that a private entity should not be able to gain exclusive control of a generic term for commercial gain. Its objections included .baby (applicant: Johnson & Johnson), .makeup (applicant: L’Oreal) .video and .tunes (applicant: Amazon), and .grocery (two competing applicants, Safeway and Walmart). Australia also objected to the creation of a set of domains with “an overtly negative or critical connotation” (including .fail, .sucks, .wtf and .gripe), saying that brand owners may seek to protect their reputations and the gTLD needs a plan to limit the need for defensive registrations.

Other Early Warnings include objections to .gov in Chinese characters (Hong Kong), to .islam and .halal (UAE), to .sarl (France) and .gmbh (Germany). The United States objected to .army, .navy and .airforce, as did India. The United Kingdom objected only to two competing applications to run .rugby, on the grounds that it prefers the alternative application for the domain by the International Rugby Board.