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

Prototypical answer:

While food is a necessary commodity, it has also become synonymous with community, family, and recreation. Meals bring people together, play major roles in travel planning, and create community through recipe sharing, picnics, and education. Food is not a regional industry, but a global one, and the creation of the “.FOOD” gTLD would mark the first ever common identifier of this internationally essential and diverse consumer market.

When we consider the rate at which domain registration has increased in the last ten years, resulting in overcrowding and a general lack of naming availability, we begin to see the need for industry classifications online such as “.FOOD”. “.FOOD” will not only open the door for increased online naming abilities, it will also allow consumers to easily locate specific products and services through increased search engine classifications. Further, by developing specific industry classifications such as “.FOOD” , advertisers will have increased confidence that they are reaching their target markets, thus increasing advertising revenue across the board for online businesses.

With these thoughts in mind, we at DOT Food believe that it is essential for the food industry to become a leader in this transition. On average, there are over 100 million searches a month for the words “food” online, which result in a monthly volume of page views totaling well over 700 billion clicks. The opportunity to enhance the consumer experience while driving competition in our market is paramount and we are excited to be apart of this evolution.

Processed food sales worldwide are approximately $3.2 trillion. According to Plunkett Research, LTD: US consumers spend approximately $1 trillion annually on food. This represents nearly 10 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The US Food Industry consists of nearly 100,000 grocery stores and supermarkets; generating nearly $500 million in food sales annually, 960,000 US restaurants & dining establishments; generating $604 billion, and employs over 16.5 million people, with approximately 960,000 of those working within restaurants.

From farming and food production, packaging, distribution, retail and catering: the food industry touches everyone’s life in numerous ways. “.FOOD” will provide an innovative way to bond the many facets of the food industry together, while offering consumers an identifiable online resource to meet all their food related needs.

Our areas of specialty will be extremely widespread, including, but not limited to food manufacturers, food suppliers, food producers, retail food service operators, culinary institutes, restaurant operators, catering providers, food publications and food television networks. Consumers can be confident that domains bearing the “.FOOD “ gTLD will provide them with industry specific information, up to date restaurant listings, recipes, and access to leaders in this market.

“.FOOD” will have a positive impact on the current Internet name space by helping to advance the unique and growing concept of industry differentiation through classification. Further “.FOOD” will reap positive benefits on both registrants and consumers by creating an easy and efficient way to market and grow food related brands, while simplifying locating “food” businesses in a cyber-setting.

In order to achieve our goals and build name recognition DOT Food, LLC will be implementing an extensive and far reaching marketing plan, focused on enhancing the value of the “.FOOD” brand name, while positioning “.FOOD” to become an industry “must –have” in assisting businesses to gain market share and exposure.

Within six- years of the “.FOOD” launch it is our goal to register 70%+ of all food-related companies with a minimum of one “.FOOD” gtld. This achievement would solidify our mission statement and serve to differentiate the Internet in a much needed and effective way.

To do so the following marketing strategies will be put in place:

1) Build strong relationships with Registrar services in order to capture new domain registrations.
2) Create a prominent and consistent image, representative of our mission and expressed clearly through branding, advertisements, and corporate relationships.
3) Build a wide-reaching presence for “.FOOD” in the industry by creating a strong international presence through attendance at conferences appropriate to our visibility in the market. Industry tradeshow participation may include the following:
a. International Foodservice Manufacturer Conference (Las Vegas)
b. International Restaurant and Food Service Show (New York)
c. Canadian Restaurant & Food Service Show (Toronto)
d. The International Food & Drink Trade Show (London)
e. Annual Restaurant Industry Conference (Los Angeles)
f. National Restaurant Association Show (Chicago)
g. Institute of Food Technologists (Las Vegas)
h. International Fancy Food Show (Washington DC)
i. Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators Conference (Dallas)

4) Create a consistent presence in all food-related trade publications and sponsorship of well attended food-related events.

5) Secure “key” Registrants through our Founders program (described further in question 29 of this application) that will act as innovative leaders to assist us in appropriately exposing our target audience to the existence of “.FOOD”.

6) Additionally, establish corporate partnerships with the world’s largest food companies and providers, such as:

Dole (the world’s largest producer of fruit and vegetables);

PepsiCo (PepsiCo reaches far beyond the world of soft drinks and exceeds $44 billion in annual revenue. PepsiCo owns Frito-Lay, which produces an enormous variety of snack foods, including Ruffles, Lay’s, Tostitos and Fritos brands);

General Mills (General Mills owns Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, Yoplait and Green Giant with revenues of $14 billion annually);

Nestle (Nestlé’s brands are wide-ranging, from the candy - Gobstoppers, Pixy Stix and Laffy Taffy, to coffee - Nescafé and Taster’s Choice. The company also owns Digiorno, California Pizza Kitchen, Hot Pockets, Lean Pockets and Tombstone. Nestlé reigns king of the international food scene); and

Kraft (the largest food company headquartered in the United States with $40 billion in revenues. Kraft is best known for its crackers: Wheat Thins, Triscuits, Ritz, Nabisco and Cheese Nips. Most recently, Kraft has made significant inroads in the health, diet and upscale food industries).

7) Creating strong partnerships with states, cities, towns and villages in order to better promote the foods of that region or area.

For example, within six years we anticipate that Chicago.food will become the “go to” secondary domain for consumers to tap into the restaurant scene in Chicago. This model would similarly spread to the many destination cities, towns and provinces across the world. This process would create a food based tourist information center in relation to dining, proportionately enhancing tourism and entertainment in any given territory by centralizing the availability of resources for visitors.

This concept would further be enhanced by building strong relationships with the local chamber of commerce or applicable agencies in order to capture newly forming food industry businesses.

8) Build strong and lasting partnerships with farmers and agricultural organizations which are committed to the promotion of sustainable food production. Through these relationships the “.FOOD” gTLD will assist in helping to achieve market visibility for local producers and increased awareness about the importance of local agriculture.
9) Cultivate relationships with both domestic and global food related organizations. Partnerships with these organizations would increase DOT Food’s knowledge base in regards to efficiently meeting the needs of food industry consumers and business owners.

10) Increase exposure for “.FOOD” by creating a strong international presence through attendance at conferences appropriate to our visibility in the market

6) Reach out to businesses in the following food related industries to create a widespread representation of the market and build strong brand representation:

A) Grocery Stores
B) Wholesale food distributers
C) Food Banks
D) Restaurants
E) Caterers
F) Culinary Institutes
G) Food Television shows and networks
H) Trade publications
I) Chefs and other industry professionals
J) Bakeries and specialty food providers
K) Farmers markets
L) Farmers
M) Grain elevators and commodity brokers
N) Equipment suppliers and manufacturers
O) Authors and recipe distributers
P) Online information providers
Q) Clubs, bloggers and social organizations.

We intend to implement a highly focused⁄ targeted marketing blitz to the industry sub-divisions listed above, their advertising agencies, and public relations personnel in order to assist them in implementing and utilizing the “.FOOD” gTLD.

The above marketing practices will help us to provide consumers with globally diverse industry information and assist them in meeting both recreational and business related “.food” needs.

It is our goal to provide an efficient and secure registration process by minimizing the input required by the Registrant and creating a streamlined application process. In order to do so and uphold the integrity of our mission to provide instant access to members of the food industry, DOT Food, LLC will implement the following registration guidelines and naming conventions:

1) “.FOOD” registrations will be restricted to individuals, businesses, and organizations that are active members of the Food industry. “Active” can be defined in this context as any individual, business or organization wishing to provide Food industry information, services, or products online.

2) Registrants will be asked to submit, at minimum their contact information and agree to a statement indicating that it is their intention to utilize their “.FOOD” domain for the promotion, distribution, or exchange of information, products or services directly connected to the food industry.

3) Content on all awarded “.FOOD” sites are expected to primarily represent the Registrant’s connection to the food industry. Sites will be randomly selected for review to ensure compliance with this guideline. Should Registrant’s be found in violation of this guideline, they will be notified in writing of the violation and given a 30 - day probationary period in order to correct the content deficiencies of their site. If Registrants are unable to comply with this guideline within the 30 - day probationary period, DOT Food, LLC will revoke the Registrant’s domain name and it will be returned to general availability. Should a Registrant’s domain name be revoked due to their content deficiencies, all funds paid by the Registrant to date will be considered non-refundable. DOT Food or it’s designated agent will perform all tasks related to content monitoring in order to not further burden their registrar partners.

4) Should DOT Food, LLC discover at any point that a Registrant has falsely represented themselves as an individual, business, or organization related to the food industry, their awarded domain will be immediately revoked and returned to general availability. Should a Registrant’s domain be revoked due their false representation of their industry relationship, all funds paid by the Registrant to date will be considered non-refundable.

5) Registrant’s should understand that name availability is not guaranteed and that names will be issued on a first – come, first - served basis. Should a Registrant’s requested name be unavailable, the Registrant will be offered the option of re-wording, changing, or adapting their initial naming request until a suitable solution is found.

6) Registrants will not be allowed to register names that infringe on the legal rights of other individuals or companies, allude to criminal activities, or contain in any part racially offensive language.

7) DOT Food, LLC reserves the right to deny, cancel, or transfer any registration or transaction (as more fully described in our Abuse Policies in question 28 below), or place any domain name(s) on registry lock, hold, or similar status, that it deems necessary ; (1) to protect the integrity and stability of the registry; (2) to comply with applicable laws, government rules or requirements, or court orders; (3) to avoid any liability, civil or criminal, on the part of DOT Food, LLC, as well as its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers, directors, and employees; (4) to correct mistakes made by the DOT Food, LLC, registry services provider, or any Registrar in connection with a domain name registration; (5) during resolution of any dispute regarding the domain; and (6) if a Registrant’s pre-authorization or payment fails; or (7) to prevent the bad faith use of a domain name that is identical to a registered trademark and being utilized to confuse users.

8) DOT Food’s registry services operator will provide thick WHOIS services that are fully compliant with RFC 3912 and with Specifications 4 and 10 of the Registry Agreement. Additionally, DOT Food will provide a Web-based WHOIS application, which will be located at www.whois.food. The WHOIS Web application will be an intuitive and easy to use application which will allow the general public to easily access registration information for each “.FOOD” site. A complete description of these services can be found in Question 26 below.
9) All Registrants awarded a “.FOOD” domain will agree to a one year minimum contract, which will need to be renewed on an annual basis. Renewal is the sole responsibility of the Registrant. Registrant’s failing to renew their awarded domains by their expiration dates will be given a 60-day renewal grace period prior to their domain being revoked and returned to general availability.

10) DOT Food, LLC is not liable or responsible in any way for any errors, omissions or any other actions by any third party (including any Registrar service) arising out of, or related to a given Registrant’s application for, registration of, renewal of, or failure to register or renew a particular domain name.

11) Through the registration process, all Registrants will be expected to designate an administrative contact for their application, which would possess all the rights granted by DOT Food, LLC or its designated agents to act in respect to the given domain including, but not limited to, managing the domain name or any services associated thereto.

12) DOT Food, LLC will implement a reserved names policy consisting of both names DOT Food wishes to reserve for our own purposes as the registry operator and names protected by ICANN. DOT Food will respect all ICANN reserved names including, but not limited to, two letter country codes and existing TLD’s. Additionally, DOT Food, LLC will seek ICANN approval on any additional names we plan to reserve in order to appropriately secure them prior to the opening of general availability.


DOT Food, LLC will additionally implement a series of Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPM) included, but not limited to: Support for and interaction with the Trademark Clearinghouse (“Clearinghouse”), use of the Trademark Claims Service, segmented Sunrise Periods allowing for the owners of trademarks listed in the Clearinghouse to register domain names that consist of an identical match of their listed trademarks, subsequent Sunrise Periods to give trademark owners or Registrants that own the rights to a particular name the ability to block the use of such name, stringent take-down services and Uniform Dispute Resolution Policies.

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