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

gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.TMALLAlibaba Group Holding Limitedmarkmonitor.comView
The Applicant (hereinafter referred to as “Alibaba”) is a privately held holding company which operates a variety of businesses through a number of subsidiaries and affiliates (collectively referred to as ʺAlibaba Groupʺ). Alibaba Group was founded in 1999 by Jack Ma, a pioneer who has aspired to help make the Internet accessible, trustworthy and beneficial for everyone. Since then, Alibaba Group has become a global leader in the field of electronic commerce.

Alibaba Group operates, through its subsidiaries and affiliates, a family of Internet-based businesses including online marketplaces that facilitate business-to-business (B2B) international and domestic China trade, retail business-to-consumer (B2C) and consumer-to-consumer (C2C) platforms, payment platforms, shopping search engine and data-centric cloud computing services. Alibaba Group reaches Internet users in more than 240 countries and regions, and including its affiliated entities, employs more than 25,000 people in some 70 cities in the Greater China, India, Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States.

In addition, Alibaba Group’s affiliates also provide other Internet based services, such as software applications, domain name registrations, website hosting and solutions, email hosting and technology-related consulting services on various marketplaces and platforms. Most of the operations of Alibaba Group are directed from the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”).

Alibaba Group’s major shareholders are the global search engine service provider, Yahoo! Inc. and the Japan-based telecommunication service provider, Softbank Corp., both are Internet business giants.

Over the past years, Alibaba Group has built a global exposure and a truly international clientele. One of the subsidiaries of Alibaba Group, Alibaba.com Limited, has been listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since November 2007 (HKSE: 1688.HK).

Since 1999, Alibaba Group has developed and launched various businesses and activities, most of them have been traded and promoted under the highly reputable “Alibaba” brand, including but not limited to, “Alibaba Group”, “Alibaba.com”, “Alibaba Japan”, and more recently, “Alibaba Cloud Computing”. Alibaba Group also established other core brands, such as “TAOBAO” and “TMALL”.

In May 2003, Alibaba Group founded the brand “TAOBAO” (in Chinese “淘宝”) at www.taobao.com (also known as “淘宝网” in Chinese), a Chinese language B2C and C2C Internet retail platform, focused on Chinese consumers but also available to consumers outside the PRC through the services of various agents. In the last eight years, the B2C and C2C platform operated under the “TAOBAO” brand (the ʺTaobao Marketplaceʺ) has grown to become Chinaʹs largest online retail platform and the primary online shopping destination in the PRC. The Taobao Marketplace’s transaction volume exceeded RMB200 billion (US$29 billion) in 2009. According to government statistics, online retail equaled approximately 1.98% of the PRC’s total retail trade in 2009. According to China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the PRC had 485 million Internet users as of June 30, 2011. The Taobao Marketplace currently holds more than 370 million registered users and over 800 million product listings showcased on its websites. The Taobao Marketplace receives more than 50 million unique visitors daily and is one of the world’s top 20 most visited websites according to the Alexa and DoubleClick Ad Planner by Google, Inc.

The growth of Alibaba Group, and the success of the “TAOBAO” branded services, have garnered a significant amount of media attention and resulted in a high public profile for Alibaba Group and the “TAOBAO” brand globally. Alibaba Groupʹs B2C and C2C businesses and services are and have always been carried on, supplied and marketed continuously and substantially under and⁄or by reference to the “TAOBAO” brand. The date of first use of the “TAOBAO” brand (including but not limited to, “TAOBAO”, “Taobao.com”, “淘宝”, “淘宝网”) was in May 2003 and since then Alibaba Group has been commonly known under that brand in relation to B2C and C2C Internet retailing services.

Alibaba Group has been promoting the “TAOBAO” brand extensively since 2003 via the Internet and through publicity and advertising in trade press and other print media and has expended significant time and efforts in promoting its products and services available at the Taobao Marketplace, including but not limited to, the “TAOBAO” brand, across the Asia Pacific region particularly in Chinese speaking countries.

In 2008, Alibaba Group introduced “Taobao Mall”, a B2C platform accessible at a sub-domain from the Taobao Marketplace, at: http:⁄⁄mall.taobao.com, which has been designed to include listings from brand owners or authorised distributors (as opposed to the listings by individuals and small to medium sized enterprises included on the Taobao Marketplace). This B2C platform has more than 400 million registered users, features more than 70,000 major multi-national and Chinese brands (including Adidas, Lenovo, Uniqlo and Proctor and Gamble), and has enjoyed a majority share of the PRCʹs B2C online retail market.

In 2010, Alibaba Group rebranded “Taobao Mall” as “Tmall” (which is an abbreviation of the “Taobao Mall” trade mark) giving it an independent website located at www.tmall.com (the “Tmall Marketplace”).

The Tmall Marketplace is Alibaba Group’s dedicated B2C platform that was launched based on the “Taobao Mall” concept originating in 2008. The Tmall Marketplace, which has been extensively promoted and marketed under the “TMALL” brand, has became an independent business and core brand in Alibaba Group dissociating from the Taobao business and the Taobao Marketplace completely in June 2011. The Tmall Marketplace became a major online shopping destination for quality brands in the PRC.

In order to underpin the further international roll-out of the “TMALL” brand and its services, the Applicant has decided to submit an application for the .TMALL gTLD.

According to the Applicant, the purpose of the .TMALL TLD may be manifold, as will be further explained below:

i. Reflect the highly distinctive and recognizable “TMALL” brand at the top level of the DNS in order to further support the platform’s day-to-day activities, for the benefit of the Applicant, its affiliates, the “TMALL” brand connected businesses and consumers;

ii. Provide stakeholders of the Applicant, including affiliates, partners, businesses, consumers, sponsorships (i.e. Alibaba’s engagement in sponsoring activities), and their respective directors, officers, employees, with a recognizable and trusted identifier on the Internet;

iii. Provide such stakeholders with a secure and safe Internet environment that is mainly or even fully under the control of the Applicant and its subcontractors;

iv. Gradually offering content in multiple languages and services to a larger international audience, directly or indirectly accessible under specific domain names registered in the .TMALL gTLD, referring to, amongst others, product categories, brands, etc.
gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.discountHolly Hill, 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.