The notice and criteria are very different to what would be expected:

• dotCYM was created to cooperate with the Welsh Government on a top-level domain for Wales and the Welsh community worldwide and has been working with the Government on this understanding for years. The Government has now reneged on its promise of a £300,000 loan to dotCYM and created a criteria which would need an extra $185,000 on top of that original sum. dotCYM is expected to be able to compete against Nominet in this ‘fair competition’.
• The applicant must specify the domain name(s) for which it will submit an application to ICANN. The government should know what name(s) it wants. Why ask an applicant to guess?
• 20% of the weighting is for the domain name and main business activities, staffing information, market analysis, target audience and services to be delivered. 60% weighting is for technical, security and financial status, and only 20% weighting for alignment with Welsh Government policy. The first 80% will be assessed by ICANN as part of the application. The benefits to Wales and the Welsh community worldwide should have been a priority, not an afterthought with just a 20% weighting.
• The 20% weighting given to Welsh-related requirements is only concerned with the development of the economy. A Welsh top-level domain will benefit the economy; for example, dotCYM estimates that around 75% of its customers will be companies in Wales that will use the Welsh top-level domain to target customers in Wales. But how can the government see this as the only benefit worth assessing in the criteria? This isn’t going to be a quick fix to the collapsing economy, there are many other short and long term benefits that should be assessed.
• The ICANN community, including the UK Government as a member of the ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee, agrees that the communities that will most benefit from the new top-level domains will be the cultural and linguistic communities. But the only requirement by the government in this regard is the need for a bilingual service. It doesn’t even pay lip service to the need to promote the culture and the language.
• There is no funding for this project from the government. A Welsh top-level domain will be an important addition to Wales’ infrastructure and it’s important for Welsh economy. It’s an excellent tool to promote Welsh culture and language and to create a closer network with the Welsh diaspora. But the government does not deem it necessary to fund such a project – even with a loan that will be quickly repaid. Why? Because there’s a company in England that’s offering to do it all for free. Why support the growth of a hi-tech internet- and domain-related industry in Wales if a PFI-style agreement can be reached with a company from outside Wales?

“This is a peculiar criteria, demonstrating the Welsh Government’s lack of interest or understanding of the benefits of a top-level domain for Wales”, said Maredudd ap Gwyndaf, Director of dotCYM, “The Welsh civil servants have always made it clear that it would make their life easier to work with Nominet and now they’ve been given the go ahead by Edwina Hart to create a tender process that seems specifically designed to favour Nominet. The government does not even try to pretend that it wishes to support innovation inside Wales. “

As dotCYM seeks urgent legal advice regarding the unfair competition posed by Nominet, the following letter was submitted to the government to ask for a review of the criteria and an extension to the deadline. dotCYM now awaits the government’s response.

Letter to the Welsh Government, 6th January 2012

In reference to the speculative notice, procurer reference 6656/11B4W, “Top Level Domain Name for Wales”, dotCYM would like to ask for the deadline to be extended.

On 20th December ICANN released a draft document outlining the Applicant Support Program. This is now open for public comment until the 10th of January and the criteria is expected to be finalised sometime after that. It may very well be applicable to the Welsh application and would result in lowered application fees. We suggest that it would be premature for the government to seek applications before that process is closed. When the government published the speculative notice it was not known that ICANN were going to do this, but now that it has, the only sensible course of action would be to delay the process until ICANN has concluded its own process.

dotCYM’s understanding is that the only other bid likely to be presented will be from Nominet. dotCYM is seeking urgent legal advice in respect of competition law and related issues that this potential bid raises. The involvement of Nominet raises questions that significantly adversely impact on dotCYM’s ability to compete fairly in the process and those issues need further review and, quite possibly, determination by the appropriate authority.

The government’s decision to create an open competition for the ownership and control of the Welsh top-level domain should be reviewed. The governments of London, Scotland, Brittany, the Basque County, Galicia and Bavaria, among others, are working with local companies to build a strong, successful, community driven TLD. dotCYM believes that the Welsh government should keep control of the top-level domain in Wales and cooperate with a local company to build this important infrastructure; infrastructure that will lead to more local companies developing a domain and internet industry that would compete in this market. We have been working towards this for a number of years, alongside the government and with a broad base of community support. A PFI-style agreement with a company foreign to the Welsh community would not be to the benefit of Wales and the criteria set out by the government should reflect this need.

Since the government has only recently resiled for its previous position, which gave dotCYM a legitimate expectation that funds and support would be provided to support its bid to ICANN, it would be fair to extend the deadline. Since dotCYM was set up especially to cooperate closely with the government on a top-level domain for Wales and the Welsh community worldwide, it did not have the time and resources to prepare a bid that could compete against Nominet in such a short amount of time over the Christmas holidays. There is the added problem that Nominet has been publicly misrepresenting dotCYM by saying that it does not represent the business community in Wales, only the cultural and linguistic community. More time is needed to garner support with politicians and businesses due to the doors closed by this untruth.

dotCYM also has concerns about the influence of Nominet Trust money with government officials.

Due to the above issues and also additional issues that dotCYM reserves the right to raise in due course - we ask that you delay the deadline for futher review of the situation and the criteria. The closing of the application process to ICANN isn’t until the 12th of April, so there is sufficient time for the Welsh government to endorse a candidate.

Yours sincerely
Maredudd ap Gwyndaf

dotCYM and its thousands of supporters - public and private bodies and individuals - think that this exciting initiative would be an important addition to Wales’ infrastructure. It would add value to business, promote Welsh culture and language and help the tourism industry stand out from the rest of the UK.

It has taken ICANN, the governing body for names on the Internet, years to start the application process for new TLDs. During all these years of discussions and arguments and fighting between different groups such as large corporations, trademark owners, governments and domain sellers, there was only one group of TLDs that had the support of the vast majority – the cultural and linguistic TLDs. There is worldwide support for these TLDs, a development that would add much needed diversity to the Internet.

There is great debate about the benefits of .sport, .movie, .bank, .health and hundreds of other TLDs but after working for years on a TLD for the Welsh community, working closely with the Scots, Bretons, Galicians, Basques and Catalans, lobbying ICANN and the EU, discussing with the UK Government officials, attending ICANN conferences in Egypt, Puerto Rico, Portugal, France and Belgium, the only resistance found to a cultural TLD was by the Welsh Government and its officials.
But why should a government take an interest in its TLD - the country and community’s brand online - and in Internet governance in general? The UK Government take an interest in these issues and plays an important part in the development of the Internet. For example,

• There are UK representatives working with all large bodies that help shape the Internet including being an important member of the Governmental Advisory Committee at ICANN.
• They have a close relationship with Nominet, who own and run the .uk TLD, because they appreciate the importance of the country’s name on the Internet.
• As a result of problems with Nominet’s Board in 2008/2009 the Government added a clause in the Digital Economy Act to allow the Government to take control of any TLD in the UK if it was not run to the Government’s satisfaction. They would not have done this if they thought that the country’s TLD was of no importance.
• There are numerous events in Westminster every year to discuss every aspect of the Internet, such as security, governance, new TLDs and the .uk TLD.

It could be argued that since the UK Government is taking such an active role in these issues and they represent Wales as well, then the Welsh Government doesn’t need to concern itself with such issues. In fact, a top-level domain isn’t a devolved issue. Responsibility for deciding which company applies for and runs a TLD for Wales ultimately resides with Ed Vaizey, the Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, in London.

dotCYM believe that this is no excuse for lack of ambition and imagination by the Welsh Government.
Why aren’t TLD issues devolved from the UK Government? Has Wales asked for devolved power with the Digital Economy Act regarding TLDs? Why hasn’t Wales ensured that it’s on the ISO3166-1 list of countries so that it could have its own proper two-letter county code TLD? The Aland Islands (.ax) with its population of 30,000 and Faroe Island (.fo) with its population of 50,000 have one; why doesn’t Wales with 3 million people?

dotCYM invites Edwina Hart, the Assembly Minister for Business, Enterprise and Technology, to change the Government’s policy and start working with instead of against dotCYM for a TLD for the Welsh people. By working with dotCYM, Wales can use and add to the expertise already abundant throughout businesses, universities and government in Wales to create a hi-tech innovation ecosystem that will serve Wales and offer specialist services to the international market.

The other option is to farm all the work out to Nominet, based in Oxford, as the Government are considering doing. They’ve created an Advisory Committee in Wales to give themselves a Welsh façade. They may even start a company in Wales as extra camouflage to try to fool the Welsh that their TLD is owned and run by a company indigenous to Wales. Is this the message Wales wants to give people who are willing to use their knowledge and passion to work hard for years for the good of Wales – don’t bother, we can find a wealthy company in England to do it for us? Do we start to compete or do we sell ourselves short once again? Do we let a company foreign to Wales with a monopoly in the market to buy their way into Wales and kill the Welsh competition or do we work together to ensure that Wales retains ownership and control of its own TLD?

dotCYM believes Wales must compete. The Government should and must take an interest and a role in the TLD for Wales and the Welsh community worldwide. Declaring a lack of interest and refusing to support a Welsh social enterprise that has been working for six years on this issue while inviting the large corporation from outside Wales which already has a monopoly in the market to compete against them is not acceptable. Scotland are supporting Dot Scot Registry, who will apply for a .scot TLD, because they want to support home grown initiatives and keep control of their own TLD. They would not dream of approaching Nominet as the Government officials in Cardiff did after the elections.
Welsh Government officials with the necessary interest and abilities must be given the responsibility to work with dotCYM and the myriad Welsh and international bodies with which dotCYM are and will be working, to ensure that they understand TLD and Internet governance issues fully.

The next time dotCYM goes to an ICANN conference they must be accompanied by a Welsh Government officer who will represent Wales and make Wales’ issues heard.

When the next round of applications for TLDs comes round, the Welsh Government and the Welsh bodies involved with the Welsh TLDs will be able to offer their expertise and experience to help other minority cultures and communities that seek the same visibility as Wales online.

TLDs are not devolved issues and until Wales proves its maturity in these issues the UK Government must ensure that control stays in London. How Wales handles its new TLD will be a litmus test for this maturity. dotCYM are worried that Welsh Government officials who don’t understand the complex issues surrounding TLDs and have no interest in them are giving the Ministers incorrect advice that shows a lack of confidence, ambition, interest and ability.

dotCYM will continue to work for the Welsh community worldwide in the hope that they will finally be able to start collaborating closely with the Welsh Government on this very important issue.
Time is of the essence and there’s only one opportunity. Once Wales gives control of its TLD to Nominet, it will never regain control of it.

At a debate at the National Assembly of Wales in Cardiff today (8 November 2011), the First Minister, a native Welsh speaker, in an answer to Elin Jones AM, said that he would not support a .cymru domain. The inference being he would only support .wales. There seemed to be no notion of supporting both domain names for his country.

Not only does he not favour the .cymru domain, but by his answer he is denying those thousands of members of the Welsh nation and community - thousands of whom don’t speak Welsh - the choice of using a .cymru domain too.

It rather raises the question of what is the point of having a Welsh Government at all if it won’t promote a language spoken by 20% of its population and supported by the vast majority of the population - what ever their language and background?

It begs the question - where is the Minister with responsibility for the Welsh language Leighton Andrews AM (who’s done sterling work in normalising the use of Welsh in education)? Was he ignored or not consulted? How does this decision fit with the Welsh Government’s commitment towards the Welsh language? Is the Welsh language Measure and the remit of the Welsh Language Commissioner worth the paper it’s written on - or is it just a ‘piece of paper’ to be waved in the air?

Leaving aside the Welsh language issue, the use of ‘Cymru’ has become increasingly commonplace with companies and institutions, especially since Devolution more than a decade ago. ‘Cymru’ is used proudly and with no problem by Welsh institutions and Welsh branches of UK institutions such as Shelter Cymru (housing), NFU Cymru (farming), RSPB Cymru (birdlife) etc. Carwyn Jones and the Labour party in Wales are now effectively turning the clock back for the Welsh language and the development of Welsh society.

Incredible.

The bid for a Welsh domain by dotCYM Ltd is the only bid from Wales. The project to gain a specific Welsh top-level domain was pioneered by them in 2006. Since then dotCYM has lobbied organisations and governments to gain support for the Welsh bid. Their bid has gained the support of thousands of individuals, businesses, societies, clubs and institutions across Wales and the Welsh Diaspora.

The original bid was for the three letter CYM, however, because of a change in the rules by the global governing body, ICANN, dotCYM asked the Welsh people what would be their preferred name. The most popular choice was for .cymru.

‘The .cymru bid is a bid from Wales, by Welsh people and for the Welsh people. It’s not a branch operation of a larger company. It’s a sign of confidence that Wales can have a distinctive internet presence and that the domain can play its part in branding and bringing together the wide diversity of Walsh society and Welsh internet facilities, services and operations. We’re confident that the Welsh Government will show faith in a Welsh business and back the bid for .cymru,’ said Siôn Jobbins, Chief Executive of the .cymru bid.

The decision to change from the original .cym was taken following the decision that the three letter ISO code for the Welsh language, CYM, would not be available for the Welsh bid.

Following wide consultation including stories in the Welsh, UK and internet press, the overwhelming preferred choice of the respondents was to place a bid for a .cymru TLD.

Cymru is increasingly recognised world-wide and obviously popular within Wales (Cymru, pronounced with a hard ‘c’ as in the English county, Cumbria, which shares the same etymology, with the ‘u’ at the end an ‘i’ sound) but it also incorporates the essence of the bid which is one for the Welsh linguistic and cultural community.

Although two and three letter domains have been most popular with users in the initial phase of the internet, Siôn Jobbins, on behalf of the bid believes .cymru is an excellent choice.

‘The new five letter top-level domain is longer than .de or .ie, but it’s shorter or equal in terms of characters than very popular and respected domains such as .org.uk or .co.uk. Within Wales it will also be easily recognisable and liked. The last fifteen years has seen a great increase in Welsh businesses, societies and clubs using the indigenous Welsh name for Wales, Cymru, rather than the English version.’

‘CYM’ is now reserved for the Cayman Islands although they already have the use of .ky. The ‘CYM’ letters are therefore not available for the Welsh cultural and linguistic community to use on the internet.

We will choose a new top-level domain to represent the community. We need one which fulfills the criteria under which the application will be submitted to ICANN, who control names on the Internet.

We need a top-level domain which will:

a) be recognisable as representing the Welsh community
b) reflect and promote the values of the application for a top-level domain for the
cultural and linguistic community
c) be available for use by the world-wide Welsh community: individuals, clubs
and societies, associations, businesses and governmental bodies.

We would like to hear your opinion.

What are your views on .cymru, .cwl (Cymru Wales) and .wales?

Which top-level domain would you prefer and are there any with which you would disagree?

Are you talking as an individual or on behalf of an organisation?

You may contact us on dotcym@dotcym.org

dotCYM Cyf i glad to confirm that John Jones of eLINIA company in Cardiff is now a member of the dotCYM Cyf board.

John has four decades worth of experience in the telecommunications world having worked for BT before setting up his own company, eLINIA, in 2003. During his career in BT John’s roles also included Senior Systems Development Manager BTUK, Head of Information Services BTUK and Vice President BT Ignite Content Hosting.

eLINIA is located at Cardiff Gate and among its recent clients include; Honda, the National Trust and the broadcasting the Assembly’s proceedings online.

CYM and the Cayman Islands

It seems likely that the bid for a Welsh Top Level Domain will have to use another domain rather than CYM. This comes because of the Cayman Island’s use of the CYM letters for use in the shipping industry.

dotCYM Cyf is in discussion with our partners and the Welsh Assembly Government for another possible alternative.

dotCYM in Brussels

dotCYM Cyf and our European partners from the Basque Country, Brittany, Galicia and others will meet with opinion formers in Brussels in June to discuss the future of linguistic and cultural TLDs.

The meetings will discuss ways of moving on and fast-tracking the slow and expensive process of presenting an application for a TLD to the world’s governing body, ICANN.

Peter Hain says dotCYMRU way forward

Welsh Secretary of State, Peter Hain MP, made an interesting announcement during the current General Election campaign. He called for Wales to concentrate it’s employment strategy in ‘green energy jobs’ and ‘dot Cymru, dot com revolution’. Thanks to dotCYM’s work, it confirms that the ‘dotCYMRU’ brand and the need for a Welsh IT sector is mainstream in economic thinking.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/wales/8618590.stm

We’re sorry that we haven’t sent out a newsletter recently – but as you’ll see from this edition, we’ve been rather busy! And there is plenty of genuinely encouraging news for supporters of dotCYM as we head into 2009 – the crunch year for applications to ICANN. Thank you, as ever, for your support – and we hope that it will not be too much longer before you can start making plans to buy your own .cym domain.

dotCYM meeting with the Deputy First Minister

After working closely with Assembly officers over the last few months to refine the business plan, we are now looking forward to meeting the Deputy First Minister early in March. We will be continuing to work closely with Assembly officers between now and then to make sure that any remaining questions are answered fully in advance of the meeting, and we are optimistic that the meeting will make the future of the bid absolutely clear. A considerable amount of work has gone into developing the business plan in line with Assembly requirements, and dotCYM are very grateful to all our Board members for their extremely valuable input.

dotCYM respond to ICANN draft request proposal

dotCYM have responded formally to ICANN’s draft request proposal, in which they outlined their expected requirements for bids for new domains. We noted several key points which may require further clarification from ICANN, in particular with regards to data protection legislation, and have also requested that they look again at proposals for flat fee structures instead of percentage-based fees. After receiving a number of similar concerns during the consultation period, ICANN are now intending to produce a second draft of the request proposal, which means further slippage in the expected dates for actual bid submission. However, we are still expecting to be engaged in the actual submission process by this summer at latest. We would like to thank Peter Black AM, Bethan Jenkins AM and Jill Evans MEP fod their support and for raising their concerns over ICANN’s pricing policy in their response to the draft RFP.

Cardiff City Council announce support for dotCYM

We would like to thank Cardiff City Council, and Deputy Leader Cllr Neil McEvoy in particular for announcing their support for the dotCYM bid (see www.cardiff-info.com/content.asp?id=7952&d1=0 and the Western Mail’s report at www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/01/24/council-backs-cym-domain-campaign-91466-22766480/). Support from the capital city of Wales shows that the benefits of a Welsh domain are increasingly widely recognised. Siôn Jobbins, dotCYM’s Chief Executive, says that ‘It will be a way for local businesses in Cardiff to show they’re part of the fabric of Cardiff life. This is a very good decision for Cardiff business, society and the status of Cardiff as the capital of Wales.’

Membership

dotCYM would like to thank all those who took up the opportunity of becoming members of dotCYM. Because of time constraints with responding to ICANN and developing the business case, we haven’t taken as much time of this side of the bid’s work as we would have liked! However, you will be hearing from us in more detail in the very near future. We are now taking advice regarding the most effective structures for making sure that our members play a genuine and practical part in running dotCYM, and for the time being are not accepting new members.

Gordon Brown: ‘Digital technology as important as roads’

The Westminster Government has said that all homes should have access to 2Mbps broadband by 2012, in order to help secure a competitive low carbon economy. Gordon Brown said that ‘Every aspect of our lives… will be dependent on the services that the digital network provides’ and that digital technology is as important today as ‘roads, bridges and trains were in the twentieth century’. Westminster recognises that developing digital infrastructure is vital for any modern economy, which is why they have been consistently supportive of the dotCYM bid. The bid for .cym is in the mainstream of future economic and social thought. Not having a Welsh domain in the 21st century would be as damaging as not having roads in the 20th.

Warm thanks to Tom Brooks

After putting in an enormous amount of voluntary time helping to drive the dotCYM bid forwards, Tom Brooks has now stood down from the Board in order to concentrate on his responsibilities with the Westminster All Parliamentary IT Committee and the All Party Communications Group, where he intends to continue to lobby for practical political support for the dotCYM bid. dotCYM would like to thank him for his huge commitment to the bid and his extremely hard work on the fine detail of preparing our application to ICANN. Diolch Tom.

In response to growing pressure from around the globe the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) decided in June 2008 to admit a range of top-level domains to the Internet addressing system. A top-level domain (TLD) is the last part of an Internet domain name, split into two categories; generic TLD, which includes dot COM; and country code TLD, which relates to countries or larger geographical regions such as dot CO.UK.

As the capital city for Wales, Cardiff has chosen to support the campaign to establish a TLD for Wales which would assist a focus on Cardiff and Wales internationally. At present, the four countries that make up the United Kingdom are covered by a single TLD dot CO.UK. Subsequently Wales and Scotland have launched bids for their own specific TLDs.

Google and Yahoo have confirmed that local domains such as dotCYM will score higher in searches including related terms like Wales or Cymru. Many Welsh software and IT businesses will obtain a boost from the additional services that they could offer around a dedicated Welsh internet domain.

Deputy Leader of Cardiff County Council and Executive Member for Economic Development, Cllr Neil McEvoy, said: “The campaign for a new and unique Top Level Domain for Wales is based on numerous economic and social benefits. For businesses in Wales the dot CYM Top Level Domain will provide an opportunity to register some of the best domain names possible: short, descriptive and memorable.

“Wales would also benefit from improved marketing globally as a tourism destination and business market by setting aside and managing names such as www.hotels.cym, www.visit.cym. We can build a clear brand around .CYM which will be a positive addition and effective way to promote Wales’s products, culture and sporting achievements. The .CYM domain will also put this ancient nation on the internet map”.

Chief Executive of ‘dotCYM’, Siôn Jobbins, said: “The dot CYM domain will give people in Cardiff, Wales and the Welsh diaspora the choice to brand their products, services, interests, sports and communities with a distinct Welsh brand.

“It will be a way for local businesses in Cardiff to show they’re part of the fabric of Cardiff life. This is a very good decision for Cardiff business and society, and the status of Cardiff as the capital of Wales.”

In order to strengthen an application to ICANN, ‘dotCYM’ is recruiting members and supporters to demonstrate the need and local support for a TLD for Wales. This now consists of over 400 organisations and companies, including WAG, and many more individuals.

Peter Black’s continuous interest and support for the dotCYM application is another small but significant sign of the cross-party support for the .cym domain as a way to brand and unite Welsh communities wherever they are.

http://peterblack.blogspot.com/2008/11/dot-cym-campaign-continued.html