ICANN could be faced with the headache of approving or rejecting a new gTLD containing a term broadly considered a slur for the first time.
Unstoppable Domains has revealed that it is working with a client on an application for .retardio, which is linked to a memecoin cryptocurrency of the same name.
Unstoppable says the domain “symbolizes pride and a blend of brilliance with eccentricity”.
But the application could come up against significant challenges if it goes ahead, due to the various reviews and objection procedures all applications face.
The word “retard”, originally a medical term for people with mental disabilities, over the years morphed into a fun playground insult but is now considered offensive enough that, unless you’re Elon Musk, it’s often referred to as the “R-word”.
(I’m only typing it out in full here for the benefit of people who are reading this in their second language, who otherwise might not know what I’m talking about.)
Since 2009, the Special Olympics has held an annual Spread the Word to End the Word awareness day, which seeks to reduce usage of the word, which it describes as a form of “bullying”.
The British comedian Rosie Jones, who has cerebral palsy, faced a barrage of criticism from her own community when she provacatively titled her 2023 documentary about online ableist bullying “Am I a R*tard?” (asterisk in original).
There can be little doubt that it’s an offensive term in most of the Anglophone world, but does that mean it cannot be included in a gTLD string?
The current draft of ICANN’s Applicant Guidebook says that applicants “should be mindful of limitations to free expression” and there are multiple avenues through which a .retardio application could be killed off.
The most obvious way would be via the Governmental Advisory Committee, which has broad powers to instruct ICANN to reject applications on public policy grounds.
The AGB says the GAC Advice objection is for applications that are “problematic” or “potentially violate national law or raise sensitivities”, but that’s a pretty wide net.
If a couple of governments decided to champion an objection to .retardio, it’s easy to imagine they’d be able to rustle up enough support to meet the “consensus” threshold for formal GAC Advice.
ICANN’s board of directors is able to reject such advice, but in the 2012 application round it pretty much did what it was told.
Another way .retardio could fail is through the Limited Public Interest Objection, which can be filed against strings that are “contrary to generally accepted legal norms of morality and public order that are recognized under principles of international law”, such as:
Incitement to or promotion of discrimination based upon race, color, gender, ethnicity, religion or national origin, or other similar types of discrimination that violate generally accepted legal norms recognized under principles of international law
Literally anybody can file a LPI Objection, and they presumably could use the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to tick the “principles of international law” box.
If successful, such objections force the applicant to withdraw.
The International Olympic Committee has never been shy about participating in ICANN, so if the affiliated Special Olympics, or the IOC, or indeed any disability rights advocacy groups, wanted to make a point by objecting to .retardio, the LPI Objection would be the way to do it.
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