18(a) Describe the mission/purpose of your proposed gTLD

Prototypical answer:

18.1 Mission and Purpose of .HAIR

L’Oréal is a leading global consumer products company serving the needs of consumers around the world with 23 brands in five different segments. L’Oréal has 68,900 employees and its products are available for purchase online and in stores and outlets in over 130 countries.

L’Oréal’s Mission: Beauty For Everyone

For more than a century L’Oréal has been pushing back the boundaries of science to invent beauty products and meet the aspirations of millions of women and men. Its vocation is universal: to offer everyone, all over the world, the best of cosmetics in terms of quality, efficacy and safety, to give everyone access to beauty by offering products in harmony with their needs, culture and expectations.

With the opening up of the emerging markets, L’Oréal’s mission is broadening in response to the vast diversity of populations. L’Oréal is committed to carrying out its mission to make beauty universal in a sustainable and responsible way. Ranked amongst the 100 most sustainable and ethical companies in the world, L’Oréal’s ambition is to be an exemplary corporate citizen.

L’Oréal has an extensive global family of brands and business units, whose content is available across a range of TLDs, including but not limited to: .COM, .CA, .CZ, .CO.UK, .FI, .FR, .DE, .IT, .NL, .NO, .PL, .RU, .ES, .TR, .HU, .EU, .AR, .BR, .MX, .HK, .CO.IN, .CO.JP, .COM.SG, .COM.TW, and .COM.AU.

.HAIR Purpose

L’Oréal has filed this application for a .HAIR gTLD with the intention of bringing to market a trusted, hierarchical, and intuitive namespace for a self-defined community of individuals and organizations whose primary focus is on providing and exchanging information regarding hair care products, other beauty products, and general information related to personal beauty and hair care. This .HAIR gTLD may also serve as a secure repository of goods and services related to hair care and beauty products. L’Oreal does not intend to apply for a community designation under ICANN’s Applicant Guidebook criteria. However, L’Oreal is committed to operating the .HAIR gTLD with a narrow focus and charter that L’Oreal will take the lead in establishing. It is intended that this restrictive charter ⁄ membership criteria will be developed in accordance with the standards set forth in L’Oréal’s Code of Business ethics and will serve multiple purposes, including, but not limited to: establishing a trusted online source of information; minimizing the need for defensive registrations and domain name speculation; enhancing rights protection mechanisms; and prohibiting of proxy registration.

18.1.2 Potential Business Models

L’Oréal is still analyzing potential use case options for the type of domain names that will be permitted for registration, as well as the potential universe of .HAIR registrants. However, these decisions will be embodied in the proposed gTLD charter ⁄ membership criteria. In undertaking this research, L’Oréal is leveraging its corporate experience in networking with existing businesses, affiliates, partners, and customers, and marketing its products and brands through these third party partnerships. L’Oréal currently envisions a three-stage rollout for the .HAIR gTLD:

Stage One

The initial stage of implementation of the gTLD will involve L’Oréal registering a limited number of .HAIR second-level domain names.

The current best thinking involves a business model in which generic (ʺnatural,” “organic,” “color,” “highlights,” “styling,” etc.) and geographic (city⁄state) domain names would initially be reserved⁄allocated to L’Oréal. These domain names would provide a framework for a hierarchical and intuitive naming system for consumers to more easily navigate the .HAIR namespace. This initial use will provide L’Oréal’s IT and security personnel the time to run a number of tests to ensure seamless and secure access using the .HAIR domain names and interoperability with various software and Web-based applications. The registration and use of these domain names are intended to be within the scope of Section 1B of Specification 9 of the template Registry Agreement, regarding the maintenance, operation and purpose of the gTLD.

Stage Two

Once successful testing has been completed, L’Oréal’s existing business units and select licensees and partners would be allowed to register domain names in the .HAIR gTLD. At this time L’Oréal has not determined the identity of these select partners; however, any third party would be required to have a prior commercial or membership agreement with L’Oréal. This initial rollout guarantees that the identity and contact information for each .HAIR domain name registrant will be verifiable based upon a preexisting relationship. This allocation mechanism also minimizes startup and operational costs of the .HAIR gTLD.

This initial allocation of domain names within the gTLD will allow L’Oréal to properly and sustainably develop the .HAIR gTLD in such a manner as to ensure that the gTLD is viewed by Internet users as a trusted namespace for access to information regarding hair care products, beauty products, general information related to hair care and personal beauty, as well as potentially being a secure repository of goods and services related to hair care and beauty products.

Given the fact that L’Oréal will have full control over the number of registrations in the .HAIR gTLD namespace, L’Oréal expects that the number of domain name registrations will be less than 10,000 in the first three years of operation.

It is in Stage Two that L’Oréal will evaluate expanding the operations of the .HAIR gTLD to permit registration by other registrants outside of licensees and strategic partners. Should an assessment of its expansion strategy lead to a decision to extend registration rights to these other parties, this expansion is currently planned to take place during Stage Three.

Stage Three

Based on its experience with any expansion implemented in Stage Two, L’Oréal will assess whether its business plan and expansion strategy should be augmented by extending registration rights to a broader class of licensees, to potential customers of L’Oréal, and to other third parties. However, it is the current intention that L’Oréal would require any class of future potential registrants to be in compliance with and legally bound by the restrictive membership ⁄ charter criteria mentioned above. It is anticipated by L’Oréal that changes to the domain name industry, and particularly the impact of new generic-term gTLDs, may take approximately five years to be realized and assessed. Any decision to expand the gTLDs beyond corporate, licensee, and partner use would likely be predicated by a L’Oréal market analysis of both the market at the time for new gTLD registrations and consumer adoption of these new Internet addresses.

If L’Oréal’s market analysis justifies this expansion before the sixth year of operation, L’Oréal would, if necessary, work with ICANN to secure an amended Continued Operations Instrument corresponding to a potential increase in registration volume above the current executed level. However, this scenario is unlikely because L’Oréal, in calculating its COI, has already exceeded the baseline guidance set forth by ICANN.

Notwithstanding this potential future expanded use of the .HAIR name space, L’Oréal currently anticipates implementing a throttle mechanism to ensure that any proposed expansion is controlled and responsible. This proposed “time-out” mechanism is described in greater detail in the responses to the financial questions (Questions 45-50 of this application).

The potential use of the .HAIR gTLD will also be driven by L’Oréal’s future business strategies as identified in its annual report and investor filings, see http:⁄⁄www.loreal-finance.com⁄eng.

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