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

gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.BENTLEYBentley Motors Limiteddemys.comView
Mission

dot BENTLEY will augment the Applicant’s commitment to Driving Luxury Performance, the brand’s essence.

In this new namespace, Internet traffic will be driven to sites that are a reflection of the brand and users will gain the full benefit of the Bentley experience, secure in the knowledge of its authentic, credible and reliable source. dot BENTLEY will be positioned, promoted and deployed as the single, dependable and trustworthy domain for Internet users to access information relating to the brand.


Applicant’s History

Bentley is the definitive British prestige motor car company, dedicated to developing and crafting the world’s most desirable high performance cars.

The Applicantʹs origins date back to 1919 when Mr. Walter Owen Bentley built Bentley Number One at a property in New Street Mews in London, England. The company rapidly became a byword for motor racing success (winning the Le Mans twenty four hour race six times between 1924 and 2003) and, following acquisition by Rolls-Royce in 1931, Bentley became synonymous with luxury motoring.

Between 1931 and 1998 the Applicant was known as ʹRolls Royce and Bentley Motor Carsʹ and following acquisition by Volkswagen AG in 1998 the Applicantʹs name reverted to Bentley Motors Limited. Thereafter, the Applicant commenced a £500 million investment programme to improve its factory facilities and support future product development programmes. It now employs approximately 4,000 staff worldwide and has a global retail network in excess of 175 dealerships including 52 in Europe and 38 in the USA. The Applicant registered the domain name bentleymotors.com on September 26, 1996 in the early days of the commercial Internet and bentleymotors.com has been the Applicantʹs online home on the Internet for over fifteen years.

Globally, the company sold just over 7,000 motor cars in 2011, a year-on-year growth of 37% from 2010.

More details of the Applicantʹs history with comprehensive information on the companyʹs activities in every decade from 1910-1919 to 2000-2009 are available on the Applicantʹs website at http:⁄⁄www.bentleymotors.com⁄distinguished_heritage⁄history⁄1910__1919.


Bentley - the brand

Many unmistakable characteristics define a Bentley - handcrafted luxury, distinctive design, breathtaking power and performance, a refined and exhilarating driving experience. Yet it is the combination of these characteristics that make the brand so unique. A Bentley is unmistakable - all it takes is a glance at the twin headlights, matrix grille or the high waistline to know one. The paradox is that although the car is instantly recognisable, it takes time and effort to hand-build each one using the finest quality natural materials.

Bentley has always been about passion. In fact, its entire reputation rests on the experienced skills and passion of its people, handed down through generations. Many say that they work on each Bentley as if it were going to be their car. It’s no wonder that every machinist who creates a set of upholstery signs the back with their initials.

Rather than focusing on typical marketing characteristics, Bentley seek to create the essence of the brand which speaks to several, diverse, audiences with one common voice. dot BENTLEY will enable the Applicant to communicate this essence to these various groups with that same singular voice in an online environment. This will be innovative, ground breaking and indicative of Bentley’s commitment to Driving Excellence by driving Internet traffic to its TLD.


Audiences - the community of interest surrounding dot BENTLEY

The present application is not for a Community-based Designation. The Applicant intends the TLD to represent its brand on the Internet. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the TLD will focus on Bentley’s communications with an online audience who are interested in the brand - which might be described as a ‘community of interest’. This group of interested parties is diverse and covers both internal and external stakeholders.

Internally, the audience for the new TLD includes the Applicant’s various business units and personnel. Externally, it covers third parties who are close to the brand, namely customers, suppliers, potential employees including those interested in the Applicant’s apprentice programme, the dealer network, franchisees and licensees; together with the media and the extensive group of Bentley enthusiasts including those interested in heritage and motorsport. Accordingly, where throughout this application the expression ‘community of interest’ is mentioned, it means this diverse group of Internet users who will ultimately engage with dot BENTLEY.


dot BENTLEY - a new online resource within the namespace

It is anticipated that post delegation, dot BENTLEY will be promoted as the single source for trusted on-line communication related to the Applicant, its range of products and other related information and resources. Internet users will be encouraged (via a range of marketing techniques) to recognise and only access information contained at dot BENTLEY as being the exclusive trustworthy source of data relating to the company and its automobiles.

The delegation of dot BENTLEY will negate the opportunity for confusion among Internet users as communication from the Applicant will educate them to appreciate that no other source can provide the levels of assurance of trust that will be found at this new TLD.

It is anticipated that immediately following delegation of dot BENTLEY, second level domains will be limited to modest numbers. For example, www.bentley and⁄or mulsanne.bentley. In this way, the Applicant will afford itself the opportunity to begin the process of educating Internet users to access data about the brand at this new TLD. The requirements for this task should not be underestimated; Internet users have long been accustomed to .com and the indigenous ccTLD for the country in which they are domiciled. Accordingly, the Applicant intends that the promotion of dot BENTLEY will be continuous and vigorous such that the Registry will achieve its promotional goals.

Traffic to the TLD will be continuously analysed to determine the number of users continuing to access the Applicant at bentleymotors.com and those that are migrating to the new platform over time. As the education process gathers momentum and traffic increases, Bentley would seek to deploy greater numbers of domains at the second level for example accessories.bentley, parts.bentley, service.bentley etc.

It is difficult to establish just how long it will take to migrate Internet users however it is anticipated that within a 24 month period there will be a sufficient shift in patterns of behaviour, warranting increases in the deployment of domains at the second level.

Looking further to the future, the Applicant anticipates that within 36 months of delegation all on-line communication will be accessed at dot BENTLEY and that vistors to the .com domains and other generic and country code TLDs will be redirected to the new TLD.

Throughout this process, the Applicant will conduct regular research among Internet users to quantify the effects of the education process and its effectiveness in establishing dot BENTLEY in the consciousness of the community of interest. This combination of traffic analysis and user feedback will provide useful data and intelligence as to the success of the new TLD post delegation.

It is also anticipated that dot BENTLEY will be deployed for a variety of Internet services besides the World Wide Web; specifically email for the dissemination of internal and external information.
gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.leaseVictor Trail, 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.