Back

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

gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.mail1&1 Mail & Media GmbH1und1.deView
With this application the 1&1 Mail & Media GmbH wishes to apply for the .mail TLD.

In the following 1&1 Mail & Media GmbH will outline the company background and structure as well as the purpose and mission of the application.

Company structure and background

1&1 Mail & Media GmbH (Mail&Media in the following)

With over 32 million customers Mail&Media covers nearly 50% of the German Webmail market. With its brands, Mail&Media is the largest free email provider in the German speaking countries of Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.

Mail&Media under its brands WEB.DE, GMX and MAIL.COM, provides email solutions for home users, as well as small and mid-size enterprises.

Mail&Media Brands

WEB.DE

WEB.DE was launched in 1995 as the first commercial German Internet catalogue. Today, with its Web services focusing on communication, information, entertainment and search and with 16.36 million users per month, WEB.DE has become one of the biggest Internet portals in Germany (AGOF internet facts 2011-10).

The WEB.DE portal offers over 40 different Internet information, entertainment and communication products including news, shopping, games as well as free and premium webmail. The portals provide a one-stop site offering all the relevant services our users need.

With over 15 million registered email customers, WEB.DE is the second largest email provider in Germany.

GMX

With over 15 years of expertise in Internet communication, the email pioneer GMX (global message exchange) is one of the most successful communication services in the German-speaking Internet today.

GMX offers high-performance, innovative mail and messaging solutions for the digital communication for each private and semi-professional customers. Embedded in the country-specific portals GMX Germany, GMX Austria and GMX Switzerland with their country-specific content and services, GMX is the digital home base for 15.3 million Internet users in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

MAIL.COM

The acquisition of MAIL.COM in 2010 marks the starting point in Mail&Media’s international success story. Within one and a half years, MAIL.COM has attracted over 2 million customers predominantly in the U.S., United Kingdom and France. With county-specific products in 15 languages, MAIL.COM aims to participate in the growth of emerging markets such as India and Brazil.

Again email is the core focus of MAIL.COM but additionally the portal provides an up-to-date international news and information service supported by global news agencies.

These three brands, WEB.DE, GMX and MAIL.COM, boast over 30 million active users worldwide of their freemail and premium mail services. The three portals, for their part, receive an additional 20 million unique visits per month.

Mail&Media is a 100% subsidiary of 1&1 Internet AG

About 1&1 Internet AG

1&1 is an internationally successful Germany based company with over 15 years of experience of providing a wide range of Internet solutions domestically and since 2003 internationally.

With over 7 million DSL⁄Internet telephony and hosting customers, more than 11 million ccTLD and gTLDs registration under management and in excess of 30 million Webmail account holders 1&1 is one of the leading Internet service companies worldwide.

The 1&1 brand provides products and services to our customers in two core areas.

The Access division concentrates on providing customers with solutions for high speed internet and telephone network access whether at home, in the office or when mobile. This can be either through DSL internet access, or through 1&1’s mobile telephone and data network. As an access provider 1&1 is the second largest provider in Germany.

The second core area is 1&1’s Hosting Division (Applications). This division provides the products, services and applications for our customers to actively create and optimize their own internet presence. The division primarily supplies webhosting packages, server rental, email and E-Business solutions and domain name purchase and management. The Hosting Division is internationally active with dedicated subsidiaries in the U.S.A, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Poland, Canada and Austria and is a leading hosting provider on the international stage.

1&1 Internet AG holds 100% of the 1&1 Mail & Media GmbH and is a 100% subsidiary of United Internet AG.

United Internet AG

With over 10 million fee-based customer contracts and over 32 million ad-financed free accounts, United Internet AG is a leading European internet specialist.

The heart of United Internet is our high-performance “Internet Factory” with over 5,200 employees, of which over 1,100 are engaged in product management, development and data centers. In addition to the high sales strength of its established brands (GMX, WEB.DE, 1&1, United-Domains, Fasthosts, InterNetX, Sedo and Affilinet) and distribution channels (some of which exclusive), United Internet stands for outstanding operational excellence with around 39 million customer accounts at 5 data centers with around 70,000 servers.

With global sales of 2.09€ billion and an EBT of 250.6€ million 2011 was a financially successful year for United Internet AG.
United Internet AG is listed on the German Techdax Stock Exchange trading under TECDAX WKN 508903.

United Internet AG holds 100% of 1&1 Internet AG which holds 100% of the 1&1 Mail & Media GmbH.

Reporting under the IFRS, all of United Internet AG’s 100% controlled companies, including 1&1 Mail & Media, are accounted within United Internet’s overall Annual Financial Statement and not individually.

Mission and Purpose

Due to the fact that GMX and WEB.DE offer their services since 1997,and MAIL.COM since 1999, it is difficult for new customers to find available email addresses they like, such as their name or reasonable combinations of names and other personal data.

With over 30,000 registrations per day, the demand substantially exceeds the potential of the existing domains like mail.com, web.de and gmx.net.

Importance of Email

Using an email address is one of the most important use-cases for internet-users. Emails addresses are necessary for:
-Personal communication
-Official communication
-Business communication
-As login credential for internet services (e.g. Facebook)
-Payment and Shopping Services (e.g. Paypal, Amazon)

Especially for communication purposes, the quality of an email address is part of the user’s reputation. If your name is John Smith, for example, it is almost impossible to get an email address like john.smith@domain.tld. These people have to switch to something like j.smith252662@domain.tld or something even worse. These email addresses are not very prestigious and additionally difficult to remember.

With the new TDL .mail, Mail&Media can expand the available namespace for email addresses dramatically. Our mission is to offer prestigious and easy-to-remember email addresses for every one of our 30,000 new customers per day.
gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.kitchenJust Goodbye, LLCdonuts.coView
Q18A CHAR: 7985

ABOUT DONUTS
Donuts Inc. is the parent applicant for this and multiple other TLDs. The company intends to increase competition and consumer choice at the top level. It will operate these carefully selected TLDs safely and securely in a shared resources business model. To achieve its objectives, Donuts has recruited seasoned executive management with proven track records of excellence in the industry. In addition to this business and operational experience, the Donuts team also has contributed broadly to industry policymaking and regulation, successfully launched TLDs, built industry-leading companies from the ground up, and brought innovation, value and choice to the domain name marketplace.

DONUTS’ PLACE WITHIN ICANN’S MISSION
ICANN and the new TLD program share the following purposes:
1. to make sure that the Internet remains as safe, stable and secure as possible, while
2. helping to ensure there is a vibrant competitive marketplace to efficiently bring the benefits of the namespace to registrants and users alike.

ICANN harnesses the power of private enterprise to bring forth these public benefits. While pursuing its interests, Donuts helps ICANN accomplish its objectives by:

1. Significantly widening competition and choice in Internet identities with hundreds of new top-level domain choices;
2. Providing innovative, robust, and easy-to-use new services, names and tools for users, registrants, registrars, and registries while at the same time safeguarding the rights of others;
3. Designing, launching, and securely operating carefully selected TLDs in multiple languages and character sets; and
4. Providing a financially robust corporate umbrella under which its new TLDs will be protected and can thrive.

ABOUT DONUTS’ RESOURCES
Donuts’ financial resources are extensive. The company has raised more than US$100 million from a number of capital sources including multiple multi-billion dollar venture capital and private equity funds, a top-tier bank, and other well-capitalized investors. Should circumstances warrant, Donuts is prepared to raise additional funding from current or new investors. Donuts also has in place pre-funded, Continued Operations Instruments to protect future registrants. These resource commitments mean Donuts has the capability and intent to launch, expand and operate its TLDs in a secure manner, and to properly protect Internet users and rights-holders from potential abuse.

Donuts firmly believes a capable and skilled organization will operate multiple TLDs and benefit Internet users by:

1. Providing the operational and financial stability necessary for TLDs of all sizes, but particularly for those with smaller volume (which are more likely to succeed within a shared resources and shared services model);
2. Competing more powerfully against incumbent gTLDs; and
3. More thoroughly and uniformly executing consumer and rights holder protections.

THIS TLD
This TLD is attractive and useful to end-users as it better facilitates search, self-expression, information sharing and the provision of legitimate goods and services. Along with the other TLDs in the Donuts family, this TLD will provide Internet users with opportunities for online identities and expression that do not currently exist. In doing so, the TLD will introduce significant consumer choice and competition to the Internet namespace – the very purpose of ICANN’s new TLD program.

This TLD is a generic term and its second level names will be attractive to a variety of Internet users. Making this TLD available to a broad audience of registrants is consistent with the competition goals of the New TLD expansion program, and consistent with ICANN’s objective of maximizing Internet participation. Donuts believes in an open Internet and, accordingly, we will encourage inclusiveness in the registration policies for this TLD. In order to avoid harm to legitimate registrants, Donuts will not artificially deny access, on the basis of identity alone (without legal cause), to a TLD that represents a generic form of activity and expression.

DONUTS’ APPROACH TO PROTECTIONS
No entity, or group of entities, has exclusive rights to own or register second level names in this TLD. There are superior ways to minimize the potential abuse of second level names, and in this application Donuts will describe and commit to an extensive array of protections against abuse, including protections against the abuse of trademark rights.

We recognize some applicants seek to address harms by constraining access to the registration of second level names. However, we believe attempts to limit abuse by limiting registrant eligibility is unnecessarily restrictive and harms users by denying access to many legitimate registrants. Restrictions on second level domain eligibility would prevent law-abiding individuals and organizations from participating in a space to which they are legitimately connected, and would inhibit the sort of positive innovation we intend to see in this TLD. As detailed throughout this application, we have struck the correct balance between consumer and business safety, and open access to second level names.

By applying our array of protection mechanisms, Donuts will make this TLD a place for Internet users that is far safer than existing TLDs. Donuts will strive to operate this TLD with fewer incidences of fraud and abuse than occur in incumbent TLDs. In addition, Donuts commits to work toward a downward trend in such incidents.

OUR PROTECTIONS
Donuts has consulted with and evaluated the ideas of international law enforcement, consumer privacy advocacy organizations, intellectual property interests and other Internet industry groups to create a set of protections that far exceed those in existing TLDs, and bring to the Internet namespace nearly two dozen new rights and protection mechanisms to raise user safety and protection to a new level.

These include eight, innovative and forceful mechanisms and resources that far exceed the already powerful protections in the applicant guidebook. These are:

1. Periodic audit of WhoIs data for accuracy;
2. Remediation of inaccurate Whois data, including takedown, if warranted;
3. A new Domain Protected Marks List (DPML) product for trademark protection;
4. A new Claims Plus product for trademark protection;
5. Terms of use that prohibit illegal or abusive activity;
6. Limitations on domain proxy and privacy service;
7. Published policies and procedures that define abusive activity; and
8. Proper resourcing for all of the functions above.

They also include fourteen new measures that were developed specifically by ICANN for the new TLD process. These are:

1. Controls to ensure proper access to domain management functions;
2. 24⁄7⁄365 abuse point of contact at registry;
3. Procedures for handling complaints of illegal or abusive activity, including remediation and takedown processes;
4. Thick WhoIs;
5. Use of the Trademark Clearinghouse;
6. A Sunrise process;
7. A Trademark Claims process;
8. Adherence to the Uniform Rapid Suspension system;
9. Adherence to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy;
10. Adherence to the Post Delegation Dispute Resolution Policy;
11. Detailed security policies and procedures;
12. Strong security controls for access, threat analysis and audit;
13. Implementation DNSSEC; and
14. Measures for the prevention of orphan glue records.

DONUTS’ INTENTION FOR THIS TLD
As a senior government authority has recently said, “a successful applicant is entrusted with operating a critical piece of global Internet infrastructure.” Donuts’ plan and intent is for this TLD to serve the international community by bringing new users online through opportunities for economic growth, increased productivity, the exchange of ideas and information and greater self-expression.