18(c) What operating rules will you adopt to eliminate or minimize social costs?

Prototypical answer:

18 C

Actions to reduce social costs

Reducing social costs within the City of Stockholm
The City of Stockholm is home to approximately 40 municipal companies and administrations. There are about 600 pre-schools, 150 schools, 30 elderly care centers and many more. Each of these entities shall have the possibility to register their organization name and more if wished, under .stockholm. The City of Stockholm will create an internal domain name strategy that thoroughly addresses aspects such as registration routine, cost estimation and DNS management and make this information available to its employees. The objective is to make second-level domain name registration under .stockholm as smooth and clear for the municipal entities in order to minimize resistance against the new gTLD. In summary, the various municipal entities will contact the .stockholm registry with an order for a second-level domain name registration and the registry will take care of the actual registration procedure with the registrar and confirm to the ordering entity when the domain name registration is completed. Hosting services in a standardized manner will be provided from one chosen provider, also here simplifying second-level domain name and DNS management for each entity by providing well-functioning services in a routinized and simple form to the City’s entities.

Reducing social costs for Stockholm citizens and more
It is clear that for such a large second-level domain portfolio that affects many thousand people on a daily basis, it will take time to get to change the users’ surfing habits and e.g. link savings. The City of Stockholm meets this challenge amongst others by informing the citizens through the official communication channel regularly used as the Internet, printed information in municipal buildings, information distributed via the intranet to municipal employees as well as PR through media such as the daily press.

Furthermore, under a transition phase probably at least two to three years, the City of Stockholm will keep its current second-level domain portfolio of .se domains alive and forward all traffic to the new .stockholm websites. This way, there will be a learning process for the users regarding the existence of the new .stockholm internet presence. After this transition phase, maybe only a parking site is informing the user about the correct homepage instead.

i. multiple applications for second level domain
In such a big organization, it is only to be expected that there will occur multiple applications for certain second-level domain names based on the fact that several entities share the same entity name as for example a number of pre-schools. In general second-level domain name applications will be handled on a first come⁄first serve basis with the exception of protected trademarks which are naturally not eligible to apply.
In the event that during the sunrise phase, multiple applications for a second-level domain name should be received, the City of Stockholm will handle this matter in the same way this problem is solved currently, by adding a a geographical appendix according to the city district the entity is located. This way the risk of confusion of the two similarly called entities will be eliminated .

ii. Advantageous pricing
It is the clear intention from the City of Stockholm to keep the costs as low as possible and there will be no actual registration price invoiced to the domain name ordering entities from the registry. Registrar registration fees will however be paid by each ordering entity directly to the registrar. The total costs of the registry and those costs in direct relation to .stockholm will be shared between the municipal body based on each entity’s size, in the same way IT costs are shared as of today. This means that each entity is only invoiced the cost price, which is as advantageous pricing as can be offered from the City of Stockholm and in complete parity with the overall objectives of the new TLD, which are not to make profit but to promote the City of Stockholm as an innovative and modern city with high living standard.

iii. Development of second-level domain costs
According to the Applicant Guidebook, an ICANN accredited registrar will be contracted in order to register .stockholm domain names. The future registrar will be able to register .stockholm second-level domains for one, two, three, five or ten years, however the City of Stockholm will probably mostly register second-level domains under .stockholm with a registration period of one, two or three years depending on the occasion. In order to reduce costs short registration lengths will be chosen for second-level domains for e.g. events or shorter projects, whereas long registration durations are thought for core domain registrations of municipal entities.
The disbursed second-level domain costs over time will not be raised without reason however, the divided domain cost for each municipal entity, which include as above stated also all fixed and running costs for the .stockholm registry will follow the cost development imposed on the City of Stockholm from all involved providers needed to run the gTLD.Naturally, the City of Stockholm will make all efforts to negotiate as advantageous terms of conditions, including the limitation of costs, as possible.

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