Accented French characters in .CA domain names coming January

Accented French characters in .CA domain names coming January
2013
déc. 19, 2012
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has announced that registrants will be able to register .CA domain names
comprising accented French characters beginning January 13, 2012. CIRA is introducing support for the full range of French
characters, such as é, û, à, ç, ë.
Every French character variant of a registered .CA domain name will automatically become part of an administrative bundle. For
example, the bundle for montreal.ca would include montréal.ca, and the bundle for celinedion.ca would include célinedion.ca.
Once a domain name is registered, all the variants of that domain name in the administrative bundle will be automatically reserved,
and will only be available to that registrant. Third parties cannot register the variants so the introduction of French characters should
not open the floodgates for cybersquatters. So, for example, the registrant of montreal.ca is the only registrant entitled to register
montréal.ca, and other variants such as montreàl.ca, montreâl.ca. If the registrant wishes to use a French variant of its registered .CA
domain name, it will need to register that variant, but no action is required to block others from registering it. As such, trademark
owners that have registered one .CA domain name will not need to protect or police all French characters variants of that registered
domain name because all the variants will be reserved for that registrant. That said, each variant within a bundle that the registrant
wants to use will have to be registered separately, and each registered domain name in the administrative bundle will have its own
lifecycle. All domain names within an administrative bundle will have to be registered to the same registrant and with the same registrar.
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