CIRA's Reserved/Restricted Names. (1 Viewing)

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mcm

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Hello all!

I purchased a domain from someone in the community a few years back and later found out it was the name of a town. This town has grown substantially during the pandemic. I was going through CIRA's General Registration Rules and read this:

Municipal names listed in the following classes in the applicable version of the Canadian Geographical Names Data Base (CGNDB): city, ville, town, village, hamlet, hameau, other municipal/district area – major agglomeration, autre zone municipale /de district – agglomerations majeure, other municipal/district area- miscellaneous and autre zone municipale/de district – divers. The Applicant for registration of a municipal name must be the corresponding government entity and the name in the registrant field for the registration of a municipal Domain Name must be the full legal name of the Applicant for registration. The Domain Name must comply with the other provisions of this Section 3, and municipal names consisting of more than one word may only be registered as one word. If there is more than one municipality eligible to apply for the registration of the same Domain Name, the Applicant must get the consent of all the other eligible municipalities. In cases where a municipal name is the same as the name of a Canadian province or territory, the Applicant may only register the municipal name as a fourth level Domain Name. Municipal Domain Names cannot be transferred to any other party without CIRA’s prior, written consent.

CIRA reserves the right to periodically review and amend these lists and to grant Registrations of any of the names on these lists as it deems appropriate. Geographical names may be made available to corresponding government entities under special conditions to be determined by CIRA in its discretion.

Am I screwed if the town decides to contact CIRA requesting the domain? In the event they attempt to, is it worth lawyering up or is all hope lost? Does this only apply to domains that are already on CIRA's reserved/restricted names list?

I did not purchase the domain because it was the name of said town. The name is generic and can be used for other purposes.
 
Many names were released because of amalgamations of said towns and cities. I don’t think Cira will be taking theses names back now or in the future.
 
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Develop said:
Many names were released because of amalgamations of said towns and cities. I don’t think Cira will be taking theses names back now or in the future.

I do not believe the domain was ever owned or used by the town.
I think the owner just forgot to pay the renewal.
 
He may have registered the name before CIRA reserved them.
If you let it expire it may turn into a reserved name. If you renew it, you have nothing to worry about.
 
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I have a bunch of them myself, never had an issue.
 
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While we're on this subject I thought i'd share this below, which i very recently came across for the first time.

2022 Version:
pality-registration-a-municipal-name-2022-02-01-09.png

https://www.cira.ca/certificate-consent-a-municipality-registration-a-municipal-name



And here's a copy from 2002 (just for fun):

Screen-Shot-2022-02-01-at-9-49-45-AM.png
 
Esdiel said:
While we're on this subject I thought i'd share this below, which i very recently came across for the first time.

I assume this means I would be SOL if they requested it... :'(
 
Develop said:
Those certs are for unregistered reserved names.

Thank you! *DRINK*
What in the world would I do without the help of DN.ca?
 
Develop said:
Those certs are for unregistered reserved names.
Yes it is. Thought it was obvious. Municipal domains are either in use by the municipality, or not in use but reserved for them.

mcm said:
I assume this means I would be SOL if they requested it... :'(

Keep in mind that it's not every city, town and village etc that have rights to their matching .ca domain. I own the name of a few towns, including my hometown.

It's only official "municipal" names that are reserved for said municipalities... as far as I understand things anyway. Perhaps with an exceptions here and there, where cira decided to use their "discretion" clause.

As such, if your domain isn't the name of a municipality then I see no risk or problem. I doubt what you own is the name of a municipality, as I assume cira wouldn't make it available for general registration even if they let it expire.

We discussed some of this here on this thread too: https://dn.ca/post/11067/#p11067
 
Has anyone here lost their municipal name to Cira?

Have you Esdiel?

I haven’t.
 
Develop said:
Has anyone here lost their municipal name to Cira?

Have you Esdiel

I haven’t.

I've never owned a municipal name before. Only a few town names. Two different things, which im trying to highlight to [notify]mcm[/notify].

I can't imagine anyone owns that many "municipal" names given that they are reserved to begin with... aren't they? And if they are no longer reserved and become available its because they're no longer a municipality or changed names?

Sorry but I'm not sure if you misunderstood my first post here on this thread. I just shared cira's officially application page/process that municipalities can use to register a domain that's reserved for them. I thought it was neat to learn the process since they obviously can't just go to godaddy to buy it.

Also, here's a case/example where a municipality tried to get a name and lost: https://static.cira.ca/cdrp/00137-westkelowna.ca_.pdf
 
They went the cdrp route because Cira wouldn’t take the name and give it to them. Like anything don’t infringe on someone else’s marks and you will be fine.
 

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