All applied-for gTLD strings and their allocatable variant strings will be reviewed according to the requirements in the Geographic Names section of the Applicant Guidebook regardless of whether the application indicates it is for a Geographic Name. The processing of Geographic Names comprises:
- Geographic Names Identification, which is a string-level check, conducted during the string evaluation phase of the New gTLD Program: Next Round, and
- Geographic Names Review, which is the verification and substantive evaluation of application responses for strings determined to be geographical. This review takes place during the application evaluation phase of the next round.