18(b) How do you expect that your proposed gTLD will benefit registrants, Internet users, and others?

Prototypical answer:

Table of Contents

1 - Goal in terms of areas of specialty, service levels, or reputation
2 - Added value to the current space, in terms of competition, differentiation, or innovation
3 - Goals in terms of user experience
4 - Registration policies
4.1 - Eligibility of the registrants
4.2 - Domain names authorized at registration
4.3 - Launching of .LECLERC
4.3.1 - Sunrise period
5 - Measures for protecting the privacy or confidential information of registrants or users
6 - Communication

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1 - Goal in terms of areas of specialty, service levels, or reputation

LECLERC is a French distribution brand with sales in 2011 of 39.32 billion Euros, which corresponds to an increase of 8 % compared to 2010. LECLERC is the leader with major distribution on the French market, holding 18 % of the market share in 2011. The E.LECLERC brand market share in France has been increasing in a relatively stable manner (on the average 3% per year) for 4 years. The LECLERC brand is also present on the international market with more than 150 stores in other countries.

The NewgTLD .LECLERC will increase international visibility of the brand and offer strong identification of the community sites to Internet users and clients of the brand. In 2011, 12,000,000 clients had a LECLERC loyalty card. More than 90 % of these cardholders were active customers.

The LECLERC brand is recognized according to a study performed by OC&C, Strategy Consultants, in September 2011, as the second favorite food brand in France. The assets of the brand demonstrated by this study are the commitment to low prices, high quality, and consumer confidence. These values are extremely important within the organization and promoted by A.C.D. Lec. The LECLERC brand is supported by a Movement of independent members, agreeing to comply with the values promoted by the brand. The organization of the Movement and of the LECLERC community is detailed in question 20.

The NewgTLD .LECLERC will make online services more easily identifiable, limiting the internet search times for clients of the brand and facilitating access to information for end users. The sites in .LECLERC will be clearly identified as belonging to the community and related to the brand. Payments will be more secure, and domain abuse of the LECLERC brand will be limited (i.e., eliminated). This new TLD will improve services offered to end-users and thus enhance the general reputation of the brand.


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2 - Added value to the current space, in terms of competition, differentiation, or innovation

As indicated above, the NewgTLD .LECLERC will bring a strong degree of recognition to the community and to sites connected with the LECLERC brand.

The NewgTLD .LECLERC will create a specific space on the Internet for consumers of the brand and will present a new environment identified as representing the community for Internet users and community members. It is also a tool for diversity in the current space with strong specialization on a specific theme and subject.

The TLD created by the ADC Lec will also correspond to a Dotbrand and a community-based TLD. The DotBrands are totally innovative in the current space and create a new type of communication, with new spheres on the Internet. This will bring community members together more easily and facilitate access to information.


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3 - Goals in terms of user experience

Two types of Internet users are identified as potentially interested in the NewgTLD .LECLERC.

First of all, Internet users who are already clients of the brand may use it to display the community of which they are a part, identify the various universes around the brand and interact on various media.

For Internet users who are not LECLERC clients, the TLD will facilitate access to brand-specific information. A.C.D. Lec wishes for Internet users to quickly obtain knowledge and consciousness of the environment they “enter” by clicking on a .LECLERC domain name and easily recognize the brand.

For these two types of end users, .LECLERC represents:
* A communication tool to increase the visibility of official communication, to reflect the brand within the community, and to clearly identify the brand’s digital territory. This allows the community entities to guarantee to the Internet users that they are in a relationship with the LECLERC brand.
* A “Safety and security” label to eliminate the risks of phishing, to reduce the possibility of end users being deceived by unofficial communications and to decrease threats to the brand through domain names (cybersquatting). The NewgTLD .LECLERC contributes to creating a healthier space for Internet users who will instantly be able to identify that a website belongs to the brand community.
* Security of payment. Several sites of the Movement are merchant sites (ex: www.leclercdrive.fr or www.lemanegeabijoux.com). The new gTLD will assure the clients of the site’s reliability and secure the payments online. Domain names in .LECLERC allow to struggle against all kind of online fraud: scamming, identity theft.A.C.D. Lec considers the security of payments on the Internet as a fundamental element and therefore wants to develop and finance the NewgTLD .LECLERC in order to reassure end consumers about the ownership of the sites and their security.
* Affiliation between the LECLERC brand and hundreds of brands and products registered and⁄or used by Leclerc on a daily basis.

The NewgTLD will improve the visibility of the branded products and will help the Internet users to better identify the new products created.

Furthermore, the LECLERC brand owns numerous trademarks (about 630) which do not contain the LECLERC name in their naming. Most of those trademarks are sold on LECLERC e-business websites and used in several information websites. The NewgTLD will improve both LECLERC and Movement LECLERC trademarks identification and recognition.


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4 - Registration policies

To make easier the understanding of the aims and registration policies, all the answers related with these subjects will be repeated in question 20.
The applicant intends to implement the following policies and procedures:

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4.1 - Eligibility of the registrants

The only entity within the community authorized to register domain names in .LECLERC will be A.C.D. Lec (see the description of the community in question 20). The other entities of the community must ask A.C.D. Lec for the use of specific domain names. These delegations will be limited to certain types of domain names determined above. A.C.D. Lec will still be the owner of the domain name, but can delegate the use of the domain name to another entity of the community.

The single registrant system has been chosen in order to reach more easily the goals planned for the TLD, in particular for the identification of the members and its federative role for communication.

A.C.D. Lec represents the community during this application and carries registration conditions which are validated by the members.

The Movement LECLERC members are bound with the A.C.D. Lec by a the tab contract. At present time, the agreement authorizes members to register domain names containing the LECLERC name, in all TLDs. A new the tab contract will involve the NewgTLD .LECLERC. The A.C.D. Lec plans to register 4 domain names by community member, and could then register complementary domain names on request.


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4.2 - Domain names authorized at registration

A.C.D. Lec will be authorized to register all the domain names that may be useful for the promotion of the brand and relevant for the community. Each domain name must comply with the values and basic principles of the “E.LECLERC Movement” and public decency.

These fundamental principles are: members independence, price policy in aid of the consumers, solidarity and security within the movement, social calling of the company, and protection of free-market economy.

The members and other entities of the community will be authorized to request the use of the domain name composed of the geographic location (see question 22 for more details) or business name.

Domain names in .LECLERC will have to be composed of at least 3 characters and maximum 63 characters.

The registration of domain names with accented characters (International Domain Names -IDN) will be authorized in .LECLERC. Non-ASCII characters must appear in the Latin-1 Character set (ISO-8859-1).

This character set includes:
* 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
* a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z
* à, á, â, ã, ä, å, æ
* ç
* è, é, ê, ë,
* ì, í, î, ï,
* ò, ó, ô, õ, ö,
* ñ,
* ù, ú, û, ü,
* ý, ÿ
* ß

The “oe” character will be also accepted since it is used in the French language. The following three symbols and characters will, however, be removed: “þ, Đ, Ø.”

A.C.D. Lec reserves the right to withdraw the use of a domain name from a member or associate if the corresponding website threatens the brand image, the activity of the Movement or public decency.

Specific measures will be set up if a domain name is registered with malicious intentions (see question 28).


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4.3 - Launching of .LECLERC

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4.3.1 - Sunrise period

This allows A.C.D. Lec to register domain names referring to the brands held by the Community. Registration during the sunrise period will be carried out for periods of 1 year to 10 years.

The domain names requested during the “sunrise period” must include the right-holding site in the domain name. For example, the brand “Marque Repère” will allow registration for marquerepere.leclerc, marque-repere.leclerc, marquerepère.leclerc, marque-repère.leclerc…

The supporting evidence must clearly describe the name for which a previous right is invoked. A previous right invoked for a name included in figurative or composed elements (including words, figures, graphics, logos, etc.) will only be accepted if the sign contains only a name, or if the verbal element is predominant and can be clearly separated or distinguished from the figurative element.

When a previous right invoked contains special characters (for example, the ampersand: &), spaces or punctuation marks, these must be eliminated from the corresponding domain name or replaced by hyphens or, when possible, expressed by normal characters. For example, the previous right for the trademark “€co Plus” can become ecoplus.leclerc, écoplus.leclerc, eco-plus.leclerc, éco-plus.leclerc.

For commercial brands, the references “TM,” “SM,” “®” may be omitted in the full name for which the previous right exists.

For names with characters other than the standard Latin characters, the domain name must contain a transliteration in standard Latin characters of the name for which the previous right is invoked. The transliteration must be consistent with the generally accepted transliteration character sets.

The .LECLERC registry agrees to comply with the rights for brands recorded in the “Trademark Clearing House (TMCH).”


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5 - Measures for protecting the privacy or confidential information of registrants or users

The single registrant of the domain names in .LECLERC is A.C.D. Lec where the “whois” information will be publicly available in the “whois.”

The candidate is a French association subject to national and European rules concerning the protection of privacy and confidential data. The French National Commission called “Commission Nationale de lʹInformatique et des Libertés” or CNIL (National Commission of Computers and Freedom) imposes strict rules concerning the protection of the confidential individual information. Furthermore, the candidate has a corresponding internal CNIL within A.C.D. Lec.


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6 - Communication

The applicant is an association structuring the Movement LECLERC and permitting the development of the LECLERC brand. The Movement LECLERC gathers independent members using the LECLERC brand. It makes possible to set up common commercial, governmental, marketing and advertising strategies.

All of its members refer to domain names including the LECLERC brand. The candidate has developed a strong online presence by multiplying its websites (informative such as: www.movement-leclerc.com, specialized on a specific theme such as www.mon-pouvoir-dachat.fr or merchant sites such as www.leclercdrive.fr, www.leclercvoyages.com, and www.lemanegeabijoux.com), sponsored links campaigns, and it dedicates a significant portion of its budget for its global communications. A.C.D. Lec wants to use the resources already in place to communicate heavily on the new extension to progressively educate users to the NewgTLD .LECLERC.

In 2011 the turnover realized on line by the Drive activity reached 405,000,000 EUR for 144 selling points. A prediction of 730,000,000 EUR for 250 selling points is anticipated for 2012. These predictions include only Drive activities but none of the annex activities such as the travel agency, or the jewellery...

The LECLERC brand devoted in 2011 269,095,000 EUR to its global communication, divided between the purchase of advertising spaces in the press (68,523,000 EUR), on the radio (129,974,000 EUR), on television (44,557,000 EUR), on other displays (21,192,000 EUR) and on the Internet (21,192,000 EUR).

Budgets devoted to global communication gradually has increased each year since 2007 (214,970,000 EUR in 2007, 231,123,000 EUR in 2008, 209,828,000 EUR in 2009 and 247,279,000 EUR in 2010). Thus, A.C.D. Lec expects to benefit from the already existing visibility to communicate the NewgTLD .LECLERC to the end-users.

In consequence, the applicant has several means of informing the community members of the creation of the new gTLD .LECLERC and its consequences (transfer of the domain names to e-leclerc.com in the TLD .LECLERC, etc.…).

These means include, but are not limited to, the following:
* Publicity campaigns TV and Radio communications on the new TLD
* Online campaigns
* Redirection of the current domain names in e-leclerc to the new domain names in .LECLERC.
* Email marketing campaigns
* Communication to the members and associates (see the description of the community) and promotion within the new gTLD.
* Press
* Other publicity campaigns...

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