France wants more say over internet rules to protect its wine sales

It’s no secret that many countries want greater control over the internet than they have under the current, US-centric model.

However, France is demanding more influence for a very specific (if not entirely unexpected) reason: wine. The country isn’t happy that the overseer for internet addresses, ICANN, is launching .vin and .wine top-level domains without letting other countries ask for usage restrictions. Government ministers are worried that this lets site owners violate international food naming agreements with impunity — an American company might use champagne.wine to sell sparkling drinks that don’t come from French soil, potentially hurting sales of the real deal.


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