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

Prototypical answer:

Over the past decade, the market for domain name registrations has grown at a tremendous pace. From 2000 to 2011 domain name registrations increased from 40 million to 220 million domain names registered globally. Approximately 60% of these are gTLDs. The .COM TLD alone has almost 100 million domains currently registered.

Due to the success of these existing TLDs, new registrants often find the namespace so crowded that they have difficulty choosing a domain name that meets their needs - particularly in terms of memorability and semantic relevance to their purpose (i.e. The domain they end up with doesn’t always reflect the true nature of the site they are creating).

Currently over 650,000 people have chosen domains of the form “〈name〉.online.COM” with many more doing so in other generic top-level domains. For all of these registrants .ONLINE provides the opportunity to use a simpler, more memorable domain, i.e. “〈name〉.online”.

Because .ONLINE brings more meaning to the namespace, it will provide Internet users with an easier means of recognizing the purpose and intent of the registrant. We believe less confusion provides a substantial benefit to the Internet user community, as it will allow them to more easily and more readily understand the purpose or motives of the registrant’s website or email, allowing for better, more efficient and more effective use of their time online.

Similar gTLD applications: (3)