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

Prototypical answer:

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

Radio broadcasting is the oldest electronic media, but still the most efficient and reliable one, even in the Internet age. In fact, it responds perfectly to all the new media challenges of the digital age: it is wireless, mobile, sustainable. It is the most resilient media in case of emergencies and is totally flexible.


Because of these characteristics, it remains the perfect vehicle for all kinds of Public Interest communications, from one to many and even within communities. This explains whyeven today it is the most widely used communication tool in the world, the only one reaching more than 90% of the world’s population,television, telephony and the Internet lagging far behind in all global statistics. Even when other media will have caught up, radio will remain as an integral part thereof.


Through radio, billions people worldwide receive emergency communications in cases of disaster, access information they need for their daily lives (news, traffic information , commerce, education, weather forecast and so on), receive communications from authorities and governments.FM radio keeps communities together locally, short waves unite them globally. That is why Public Service Radio exists in every country in the world. Even where broadcasting is considered purely a commercial activity, public interest is involved.


Where it has already occurred, and soon in LessDeveloped Countries as well, the transition of Radio Broadcasting communities to the Internet combines the best of the radio media with the two-way communications that the web provides. But this will not happen overnight; the process needs to be carefully prepared and setup, possibly by those who have managed and operated radio smoothly and efficiently in the first 85 years of its existence as a media.


For all of these reasons the EBU, on behalf of the world radio community, is applying for the .radio TLD, not only to benefit its future registrants, but the much wider community of users as well.


In submitting an application to ICANN for the creation of a .radio TLD, the Radio community intends to create a predictable, secure and trustable name space.

b) i. What is the goal of your proposed gTLD in terms of areas of specialty, service levels, or reputation?

On behalf of its members, the EBU transmits sports, news and music events to broadcasters worldwide through its satellite and fiber network. EBU services include radio network services, a news exchange for radio, an exchange of music concerts, live events worldwide, radio studies and market research, as well as coordination of broadcast retransmission between member and⁄or non-member participants. Other Unions and Associations participating in the ʹ.radioʹ project, offer similar services, albeit on a different scale.

The EBU and other WBU members promote cooperation between broadcasters and facilitate the exchange of audio and audiovisual content. The EBUʹs mission includes contribution to freedom of expression, media freedom and pluralism, development of technology, communications beyond national borders, cultural diversity, dialogue between cultures, cultural identity, social integration and cohesion for all peoples and communities.

Radio also plays a crucial role in helping communities or entire countries to rebuild and recover from the devastation and destruction of a natural or man-made disaster. During a crisis, radio enables the authorities to relay important information such as news coverage and emergency warnings. Very often, radio is the only channel through which victims can trace lost family members, or simply share their experiences. In the future, the interaction between broadcasting and Internet radio could open new enhanced possibilitiesfor disaster recovery interventions.

Taking all of this into account, the goal of the .radio TLD in terms of specialty is to focus on the needs of the community, understood as all those entities and individuals related to audio content distributed mainly by broadcasting to wide communities of listeners throughout the world.

Service levels will match or exceed the high end of currently existing TLDs. The .radio Registry will vigorously build up and defend the reputation of the .radio TLD as an orderly and progressive TLD, under the oversight and with the support of the World Radio Advisory Board, and most notably of the Broadcasting Unions forming the WBU.

This World Radio Advisory Board will guarantee the stability and suitability of the .radio policies. These will be adopted in a transparent way with quality of service and the overall benefit of the whole Radio community including the Less Developed Countries, as their ultimate goals.

b) ii. What do you anticipate your proposed gTLD will add to the current space, in terms of competition, differentiation, or innovation?

The .radio TLD fills a large gap in terms of consumer choice. From a competition standpoint, it creates a level playing field with respect to the market power of large unspecific TLDs. It is naturally differentiated from other TLDs by its scope, by its governance model and by its intrinsic meaning. A community TLD is by definition one of the most suitable tools to broaden and raise the profile of diversity and variety on the Internet. The .radio TLD focusses on content creation and distribution and services of general interest to the whole community, ensures a purposeful and meaningful TLD created to serve the needs of the radio industry and listeners, andacts as a strengthening tool for a wide community of industry players, broadcasters, public service stakeholders, web radios and individual amateurs.


Innovation is greatly encouraged by the proactive structured development of the name space. The development process involves an open procedure with calls for proposals for purpose-built localized services based on designated portions of the .radio name space. This approach helps use innovative potential worldwide for the benefit of the community and for the evolution of the global Internet.


Since the early days, broadcasters have used common norms and standards to facilitate data communication. Today, more powerful standards are required due to the high volume of data exchanged over the Internet.Technology also has become more sophisticated. The radio industry is a closed community, one where a high level of co-operation and trust bridges the gaps of geography, language and inequalities.

The .radio TLD will encourage the radio community to adopt best practices in cyberspace and provide an exemplary registry model. The TLD will make it possible to unambiguously distinguish the Radio community players through an ordered domain name structure.

b) iii. What goals does your proposed gTLD have in terms of user experience?



Compared to most existing TLDs, the .radio TLD user experience will greatly enhance predictability and memorability of domain names. A community-based focus, an orderly development process and strong intellectual property protection all ensure that users will generally find the services they are looking for under the names they intuitively tend to use for them.

User experience is further improved by the specificity of a community TLD that will provide the community and those wanting to enjoy the content created and distributed by its members with the means to identify such content under a TLD explicitly designed for the purpose.

As an example, the recent tsunami and nuclear accident in Fukushima has shown that radio is the only reliable media capable of reaching the entire community in a disaster area in real time. All of the interveners working in the disaster area needed access to very specific information. Intuitive radio domain names could help save lives in natural disasters. We plan to reserve emergency numbers in the 2LD for use by the relevant SOS authorities, e.g. 112.radio (Europe) or 911.radio (Americas).


b) iv. Provide a complete description of the applicant’s intended registration policies in support of the goals listed above.

The registration policies are differentiated between pre-launch phase (A), launch phase (B) and general availability (C). All policies will be approved and reviewed by the World Radio Advisory Board established by EBU and its sisters Broadcasting Unions in the WBU, with participation of other Radio community stakeholders.

A) Pre-launch phase: Name-space mandates and Frequent Names Global Contention Resolution

During pre-launch, projects and content provision commitments are actively sought and negotiated for key public-interest portions of the name space. All potential mandate holders are subject to screening, thorough pre-validation, and very strict rules on using the .radio names to promote the TLD adoption and innovative and public-interest oriented services to the .radio community. There will be a clear and low limit on the number of pre-launch names.

The Frequent Names Global Contention Resolution is a special global community contention resolution program, mainly for frequently used radio station names aiming to achieve a coherent, consistent and friendly policy for the .radio TLD used by the worldwide radio broadcasters, and specially, to minimize conflicts.


B) Launch phase: Sunrise, Defensive Registrations and Expanded Name Selection.

During the Launch phase, all registrations are thoroughly pre-validated; launch phase pre-validation depends on priority status but will always involve community nexus and name selection.

So-called Sunrise phase will comprise the following categories:

1. Broadcasters’ Unions
2. Licensed Radio Broadcasters
2.1 International Broadcasters
2.2 National Broadcasters
2.3 Regional Broadcasters
2.4 Local Broadcasters
2.5 Community Broadcasters*
3. Trademarks
3.1 Trademarks used for radio related activities for example companies providing specific services, equipment, radio programmes, etc.
3.2 Defensive registrations by non-eligible applicants
4. Internet radio
5. Licensed amateur radios and clubs
6. Radio professionals
7. Above categories for expanded name selection when not protected by trademarks

*Community Broadcasters’ serve geographic regions and communities of interest and are legally defined as a distinct broadcasting sector in many countries. They are included in Category 2 and will be considered accordingly to their geographic dimension (i.e., international, national, regional or local).

Please note that Categories 1 and 2 are also subject to pre-launch Frequent Names Global Contention Resolution, as described above and detailed in response to Question 20 below.

Categories 1-6 have strict name selection rules (i.e. radio stations’ names or usual abbreviations of names), while Category 7 will allow, for instance, radio program⁄show names or other names related to the applicants actual activities within the radio industry. No “fantasy” names will be allowed.

It should be noted that category 3.2 will be open to any registrant for registered trademarks validated by the Trademark Clearinghouse that ICANN is setting up. But if registrant is not an entity providing specific services to the radio industry and⁄or the .radio community, the applicant will not be eligible in terms of the .radio policies, and the name will be blocked on the registrant’s behalf, but not delegated for use. This mechanism is a further guarantee to right holders, but given the extensive protections derived from the community-based policies of the TLD and the public-interest oriented Registry, EBU does not anticipate any significant recourse to this mechanism as protections and safeguards are high.

C) Live Registry: ongoing registrations

At general availability, community nexus. name selection and content and use requirements are subject to post-validation throughout an extensive compliance program (see answer to question 29 for more a more detailed explanation of the compliance procedure). The ongoing compliance program will regularly be adapted to current needs based on experience and audit findings. Community nexus validation, name selection and permitted use checks combined with strong protection of trademarks helps stamp out cyber-squatting and abusive registrations.

Please see answers to Questions 18 (c) and 20 below for further description of these phases, and their requirements.


b) v. Will your proposed gTLD impose any measures for protecting the privacy or confidential information of registrants or users? If so, please describe any such measures.

Even if the majority of .radio registrants are expected to be corporations rather than individuals, EBU recognizes first hand that this is a relevant issue and an evolving area of law in which there is no international standard. The protection of privacy and confidential information of registrants and users will comply with applicable Law, in particular the Swiss Data Protection framework. Within the bounds of applicable regulations, the registry will implement anti-data mining measures by way of rate limitation, authenticated access or white-listing⁄black-listing, as well as tools to prevent unauthorized recourse to repetitive automated access.

The .radio Registry also intends to incorporate contractual language in its Registry Registrar Agreement (RRA) modeled after language which has been included in the template Registry Agreement and which has been successfully utilized by existing ICANN gTLD registry operators. Specifically, Registry Operator shall notify Registrar of the purposes for which Personal Data submitted to Registry Operation by Registrar is collected, the intended recipients (or categories of recipients) of such Personal Data, and the mechanism for access to and correction of such Personal Data. Registry Operator shall take reasonable steps to protect Personal Data from loss, misuse, unauthorized disclosure, alteration or destruction. Registry Operator shall not use or authorize the use of Personal Data in a way that is incompatible with the notice provided to registrars. Registry Operator may from time to time use the demographic data collected for statistical analysis, provided that this analysis will not disclose individual Personal Data and provided that such use is compatible with the notice provided to registrars regarding the purpose and procedures for such use.

Finally, EBU will propose to ICANN, either through the Registry Agreement negotiations or through Registry New Services procedure once signed, a Whois service that allows individual registrants to opt-out from publishing their personal contact data, as other existing gTLD Registries have done.

b) vi. Describe whether and in what ways outreach and communications will help to achieve your projected benefits.

ICANN can trust the oldest communications industry to be serious, professional and energetic in communicating and outreaching the goals, benefits and policies of .radio to the relevant communities. In this regard EBU and its sister Unions within WBU will be leading this program in reaching out to all its members, and beyond.

The .radio TLD has outreach programs adapted to each phase of its introduction.

The Pre-launch negotiations involving calls for projects by innovators and pioneer users. They foster the intuitive usability of the .radio TLD with a focus on the needs of the Radio community. Once these domain names are active, they become an outreach mechanism in their own right because they establish the touch-and-feel of the .radio TLD in the minds of the users.

The Launch phase will involve outreach mechanisms that specifically leverage the Broadcasting Unions, radio conferences, and other general activities for each sector of the community. Special emphasis will be placed in raising awareness of broadcasters, Internet and amateur radios and other industry players from Less Developed Countries.

Promotion codes distributed through community-specific channels are a form of outreach available at any time. They are also a low-cost method to achieve community nexus and to prevent abusive registrations. WBU and the other related associations will play a very active role in this regard.

Similar gTLD applications: (0)