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

gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.insurancefTLD Registry Services LLCfsround.orgView
The .insurance gTLD will serve as a trusted destination on the Internet for insurers, insurance services providers, consumers and Internet users. The .insurance gTLD will seek to reach insurance professionals, their employees and partners while modeling a template of trust for online commercial interactions. The pre-registration and screening conducted by FRS will serve the industry by allowing it to congregate under one umbrella gTLD. This presents consumers with clear choices in an environment that will encourage .insurance registrants to be innovative and provide maximum value to consumers in their online experience, while providing significant competition to existing gTLDs.

Additionally, the proposed .insurance gTLD will offer the following benefits:
- Provide a trusted online marketplace for consumers seeking to access insurance products and services;
- Provide FRS and its community members with memorable Internet addresses and improve navigation to products, services, advertising campaigns, public interest content, public awareness initiatives, etc.;
- Protect the namespace for the benefit of institutions, consumers and the overall insurance community;
- Provide a variety of high value-added services through its backend registry services provider; and
- Create an opportunity to design innovative online products and services for the insurance industry and its consumers.

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

FRS was founded by organizations that hold a leadership role in the U.S. insurance industry. FRS’ Board and Advisory Board will be composed of insurers and insurance associations and therefore it is uniquely situated to understand the needs and goals of registrants in the insurance industry. FRS’ goal is that there will be no confusion for Internet users when they encounter a .insurance website. Every .insurance registrant will be a legitimate member of the insurance community, committed to a trustworthy commercial transaction experience for its clients and consumers. Registrants will work with FRS and adhere to the strictest terms of service and security standards, generated specifically by the global financial services community for this undertaking.

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

FRS’ primary driving factor is to provide a vetted and therefore, more secure online environment for businesses and consumers to interact with the insurance community. The success of the gTLD will not be measured by the number of registrants, but rather by the level of institutional and consumer recognition and trust placed in the .insurance gTLD. Using this benchmark, FRS will strive to build recognition and trust that rises to a level meeting or exceeding that found in the .edu and .gov gTLDs.

As noted above, FRS is committed to serving the insurance community as it increasingly relies upon emerging technologies to securely deliver information between institutions and about insurance products and services to its consumers. The .insurance gTLD has the potential to serve as the cornerstone of this type of online strategy for the industry. FRS seeks to become a trusted source for inter-institution exchanges and transactions and a platform for more secure, consumer-facing insurance activities, including the purchase of insurance products and services.

In addition to the education and outreach initiative discussed above, FRS is keen to continue its work with ICANN and the broader Internet community in promoting security controls within gTLDs that require enhanced security measures, such as financial gTLDs. Its most recent effort in this area was the creation of security requirements formally proposed to the ICANN Board in December 2011 by the joint ABA and BITS (the technology policy division of the Roundtable) Security Standards Working Group. Following its submission to ICANN, the requirements have since been referenced in question 30 of the Applicant Guidebook. FRS will contractually incorporate these requirements into both its Registry-Registrar Agreement (RRA) and the end Registrant Registration Agreement to ensure that it has the legal means to enforce these obligations.

The creation of the .insurance gTLD will provide the insurance community with opportunities to explore and create new products and services that support the community in addressing the Internet based issues and concerns referenced above. It will also provide the insurance community with a space to innovate, improve current insurance services, and address the increasing consumer demand for faster and more convenient transactions.

FRS plans for its operation of the .insurance gTLD to provide significant benefits to the larger Internet community in the following ways:

1. Trust
The .insurance gTLD will allow the Internet user, before he or she even clicks on a search engine result, to know that the site belongs to a trusted member of the insurance community.

Among the results that would arise in a typical search of existing gTLDs are fraudulent businesses that intend to put Internet users, especially consumers and their personally identifiable information, including, but not limited to, financial data, at serious risk. Often, these rogue online operators register domains that look similar to legitimate domains to intentionally mislead users, resulting in increased costs to the industry and consumers. FRS’ ultimate goal on behalf of the industry is that the .insurance gTLD will reduce the efficacy of such attacks, as users on a bona fide .insurance site would know that their information was safe with a vetted insurance provider.

2. Ease of search
As the amount of information available online continues to grow, it will become increasingly more difficult for consumers to choose which websites to visit for their desired insurance services and products. However, consumers will know that Internet search results listing websites ending in .insurance belong to legitimate members of the insurance community. Will a typical Internet search produce legitimate insurance providers via the Internet? Yes. But, will the individual performing the search have the tools at hand to determine which of the results are trustworthy and legitimate? Not necessarily, but with .insurance they will.

3. Vetting and Oversight
The reason Internet users will be able to trust a .insurance domain is because FRS will aggressively govern both the issuance and continued use of a second-level .insurance domain. More information on the vetting and oversight can be found in 18(b)(iv) below.

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

FRS will ensure that the .insurance gTLD will create an enhanced user experience both for registrants and Internet users. FRS’ goal is to operate the .insurance gTLD in a manner that instills trust and confidence in the domain names and websites associated with the gTLD. For users this means a small, specialized, highly controlled environment, free from much of the abusive behaviors found in existing gTLDs.

1. Registrants
The number of .insurance registrants will be relatively small. As such, registrants will receive higher levels of customer service than can reasonably be expected in existing gTLDs. Once granted a .insurance domain, registrants will benefit through the domain nameʹs positive brand identity and consumer trust. Likewise, .insurance’s reputation will benefit from the upstanding efforts of second-level domain operators seeking to maintain their registration status.

2. Internet users
As stated above in 18(b)(ii), the restricted and manageable size of the .insurance community will provide both a trusted and secure online experience. The controls managing the community will foster competition among registrants to compete on a user-experience basis for Internet users.

18(b)(iv) Provide a complete description of the applicantʹs intended registration policies in support of the goals listed above.

To ensure a trusted environment, FRS will restrict registrations to a select group and will limit the types of activities that may take place within the gTLD with a series of policies meant to prevent and address negative behavior. These policies include:

Registrations within the community may initially be made by the following for-profit and not-for-profit businesses, individuals or organizations:
- Licensed insurance companies regulated by a government entity
- Licensed insurance agents and brokers regulated by a government entity
- Associations whose members include licensed insurance companies, agents or brokers (if approved by the FRS Board)
- Organizations that are controlled by insurance companies (if approved by the FRS Board)
- Entities whose operations are dedicated to serving insurance companies (if approved by the FRS Board)
- Specialized organizations (e.g., research or risk coordination) (if approved by the FRS Board)

In working on behalf of the insurance industry, FRS understands its responsibilities to the industry. Because of the proposed insurance-service activities that will occur within the .insurance namespace, it is essential that registrations only be permitted by verified members of the insurance community. In addition to validating the eligibility of the registrant, the domain name to be registered must comply with appropriate name selection and use requirements.

To ensure strict compliance with these policies, FRS will develop and implement a Registrant Eligibility Evaluation Process. This process will require .insurance accredited registrars to collect registrant information that will be used by FRS, or its designated third party service provider, to validate that the registrant is a member of the insurance community. These requirements will be incorporated into FRS’ Registry-Registrar Agreement (RRA).

As part of the registration process, potential registrants must provide its registrar with the following information:
- Full legal name
- Business address
- Professional title of representative of the administrative contact of the potential applicant
- Business name
- Point of contact within the business who can verify their representation of the business
- Phone
- Email
- Another proof of identity, necessary to establish that the registrant is an eligible member of the appropriate .insurance gTLD community
- For insurance companies, the state regulatory authority issuing its charter
- For agents and brokers, the state licensing agency
- For organizations that are majority controlled by insurance companies (if approved by the FRS Board), list of and proof of its owner(s)
- For entities whose operations are principally dedicated to serving insurance companies (if approved by the FRS Board), corporate operating agreement or like document(s) as determined necessary to validate alignment with the goals of the community
- For specialized organizations (e.g., research or risk coordination) (if approved by the FRS Board), a copy of the corporate operating agreement if for-profit or the mission statement if non-profit (or like document(s) as determined necessary to validate alignment with the goals of the community)

Applicants who meet the eligibility requirements and have been validated as legitimate members of the community will then be able to register their domains in .insurance.

Domain names that pass the vetting process will enter a 5-day Add Grace Period (AGP), or Pending Create, before becoming valid. Applicants whose domain name fails the vetting process will be notified with reasons for denial and procedures for appeal. Any applicant who is rejected for either a non-eligibility criteria or use of domain evaluation can appeal the validator’s decision to FRS.

FRS will audit approved registrants and their strings to ensure compliance with all applicable eligibility and use requirements.

Domains initially registered in the .insurance gTLD must correspond to a trademark, trade name or other service mark owned by the registrant. Initially, all other registrations (e.g., geographic, generic, etc.) will not be allowed. FRS will reserve a set of generic domain names prior to launch. These reserved domain names will either be used by FRS in its capacity as Registry Operator for the management, operation and purpose of the gTLD, or they will be equitably allocated to members of the community. The subset of domain names reserved for FRS’ use is necessary to create a trusted, hierarchical, and intuitive framework for the .insurance namespace to facilitate the ease by which consumers can navigate the gTLD.

Although these reserved words will be commonly used words and phrases and⁄or geographic terms, FRS will provide an enhanced Rights Protection Mechanism that will provide trademark owners with an avenue to challenge the reservation and potential use of these domain names. This challenge process will be modeled after the highly successful dotAsia Pioneering Program.

18(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.

The .insurance gTLD will be governed by strict guidelines and policies regarding issues of privacy and the protection of confidential registrant information. The policies will be transparent and rigorous. Each level of the gTLD (registry, registrar and registry services provider) will have privacy and security policies in place to protect against unauthorized access to confidential information.

Privacy and security will be key elements of the .insurance Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), which will govern how a registrant may use its registered name. Draft AUP language specifically addresses privacy by noting that a registrant may not use a .insurance domain for any activity that ʺviolates the privacy or publicity rights of another member of the .insurance gTLD community or any other person or entity, or breaches any duty of confidentiality that you owe to another member of the .insurance gTLD community or any other person or entity.ʺ

Members of the .insurance gTLD community operate under the highest standards of privacy and protection of personally identifiable information and financial data. Such protection is an essential component of the insurance industry and a legal necessity for any Internet enterprise. State insurance regulators and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners support strong laws and regulations that protect the privacy of individual consumer information. Every state has adopted comprehensive privacy laws to protect the extensive personal information collected by insurers to underwrite and administer insurance policies. Insurance regulators also support efforts to mandate fair treatment and notification to consumers when their private information is improperly disclosed to third parties, especially where such unauthorized disclosures may result in identity theft. It is in the best interest of an insurance provider or affiliate to continue to provide maximum privacy protections for consumers, and this will continue to be their responsibility in operating a .insurance gTLD. FRS will implement the latest online technology (e.g., DNSSEC and multi-factor authentication) and services to help ensure the .insurance domain is synonymous with trust. These steps will align with actions instituted by .insurance registrants, working in lockstep with FRS. This is a manifestation of the larger goal of .insurance, that of a trusted source of safe online transactions, as stipulated in 18(a).

The protection of privacy and confidential data is of paramount importance, especially in an industry as highly regulated as insurance services. Not only will the registry have its own set of measures, but each individual institution or registrant will be required to remain compliant with existing laws and regulations in place regarding privacy and the protection of customer data. FRS will accomplish this, in part, through the inclusion of contractual language in its RRA that is modeled after similar language in Registry Agreements of existing ICANN gTLD registry operators. Specifically, some of this language will include the following:
- Registry Operator shall notify the 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.

The draft AUP informs registrants that FRS maintains ʺcomplete enforcement rights over registrant’s use of their .insurance domain name. If registrant violates this AUP, registrant will be subject to a rapid domain name compliance action, be in material breach of the Agreement, and along with all other rights and remedies under this Agreement with respect to such a breach, FRS reserves the right to revoke, suspend, terminate, cancel or otherwise modify registrant’s rights to the domain name.ʺ

On a regular basis, FRS will audit domain names, or require an attestation by second-level domain holders, registered in the .insurance gTLD space to ensure compliance with all eligibility and use criteria. If a violation is discovered, an investigation will begin immediately to rectify the violation. If an applicant chooses to appeal, FRS will review the appeal to determine if there is any material change to the action or activity. FRS will retain the right to assign the dispute to an ombudsman if necessary.

A more detailed discussion of FRS’ privacy policies, specifically steps to avoid unauthorized access to sensitive information, can be found in responses to question 30.

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

Outreach and communications with the insurance services community will be critical to the success of this project and has already begun over the past four years by FRS’ founding members. FRS’ founding members have discussed possible impacts to the industry with domestic insurance associations as well as ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). Current conversations with and among insurance companies and members of the industry include ways to reach the insurance community and build an infrastructure that includes all members of the insurance services community. Ultimately, a communications strategy and plan will be implemented by FRS and its Board to guide its efforts. Advisory groups and committees will also be consulted to ensure continued alignment.

FRS and its Board will utilize all existing channels of communication to increase the awareness of the value and merit of the .insurance gTLD. Finally, the gTLD will be promoted by registrants themselves. Insurance providers will have an incentive to direct consumers to the .insurance sites they operate, and thus will promote their second-level domains containing .insurance throughout existing media channels.
gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.hoteldot Hotel Limitedfamousfourmedia.comView
Q18b
How do you expect that your proposed gTLD will benefit Registrants, Internet users, and others?

The Applicantʹs primary intention is to provide a favorable ecosystem for the growth and evolution of the sector. The key to achieving this aim are significant provisions for brand integrity and protection of intellectual property. The Applicant intends to push the boundaries of what can be done through innovative design of the new top level domain, including technologies that capitalize on the sectorʹs needs. A close relationship with the sectorʹs stakeholders is essential to this purpose, and will enable .hotel to grow in response to both Registrant and user needs. The gTLD also contains significant opportunities as a next generation organizational scheme for online content, including provisions for abuse prevention to defend users against malicious registrations. The gTLD has been meticulously designed by a team of industry leaders from an array of different fields. This has enabled the creation of an airtight financial strategy, an inspired technological development plan as well as a close and dynamic relationship with the sector community - all critical needs on the path to the enduring success of the gTLD.

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

Specialty

The Applicant’s key specialty goal is to enable a secure and stable gTLD dedicated to providing global Internet users with a targeted space for subject matter of interest. This gTLD will serve as a home for both Registrants and end-users who feel an affinity with this sector and its associated content. Consequently they will prefer to register domain names, create and post content and seek information in a highly targeted manner.

Allowing users the ability to create a targeted, unique space within the new gTLD will enable them to customize their online offering and presence. The .hotel gTLD will by itself clearly signal the nature and purpose of such websites to Internet users.

The applicant intends to actively promote gTLD specific vertical searching in the gTLD for the benefit of Registrants, end-users and other stakeholders. This specialization through Vertical Search will also benefit Internet users seeking authentic online information and products or services as they will no longer have to wade through content completely unrelated to their desired results.

As the gTLD is sector specific it will provide a better context for second level strings allowing for a much higher number of relevant and more conscise domains. This more targeted environment will simplify the user experience across multiple platforms specifically with smartphones and tablets where minimal input is favoured.


Service Levels

The goal of the gTLD Registry is to offer domain name registration services of the highest level, exceeding both ICANN requirements and current sector norms. To achieve these goals, the Applicant has contracted with well established, proven service providers offering the highest possible level of quality in Registry and Registrar services. The expertise of the service providers will ensure that the security and quality of the gTLD will be uncompromised.

The Applicant will further provide the highest level of service to trademark, legal rights owners and second-level domain owners. To achieve this goal the Applicant will be implementing a range of Abuse Prevention and Mitigation policies and procedures. The Applicant is also firmly committed to the protection of Intellectual Property rights and will implement all the mandatory Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) contained in the Applicant Guidebook. Aswell as these The Applicant will further protect the rights of others through the implementation of additional RPMs. The RSPʹs experience will ensure that the gTLD provides this high level of service to trademark and other legal rights owners to combat abusive and malicious activity within the gTLD.

The Registry will respond to abuse or malicious conduct complaints on a 24⁄7⁄365 basis, respond to requests from governmental and quasi-governmental agencies and law enforcement in a timely manner, and promptly abide by decisions and judgments of UDRP and URS panels, in accordance with ICANN consensus policies.

The Applicant will also provide fast and responsive (24⁄7⁄365) customer support to both Registrars and end-users in a number of languages to assist with general enquiries as well as complaints of abusive or malicious conduct.


Service Levels related to Registry Backend Services

The Applicant will work with Neustar Inc. (hereinafter “RSP”) whose extensive experience spans more than a decade. This will ensure delivery of the protected, trusted, and permanently-running Registry infrastructure necessary to reliably host and operate a gTLD. The Applicant will also work with its Registrars to ensure that consumers receive secure, fast, and reliable domain name registration services with a high-level of customer service.

The global DNS network that will be utilised for the resolution of domains in this gTLD has already been operating for over 10 years. It currently delivers DNS resolution for several TLD customers and provides low latency query responses with a 100% DNS uptime service level agreement.

The Applicant will further leverage the RSP’s existing DNSSEC infrastructure, capabilities, and experience to provide a robust and standards compliant implementation that ensures DNSSEC services are always available as part of the DNS.

The Shared Registry System (“SRS”) to be used for the Applicantʹs gTLD is a production-proven, standards-based, highly reliable and high-performance domain name registration and management system that has been designed to operate at the highest performance levels. The Applicantʹs RSP has been able to meet or exceed their SLA requirements nearly every month since itʹs inception. Their Registry has achieved a 99.997% success rate in meeting SLAs since 2004.

The Applicantʹs RSP has extensive experience providing ICANN and RFC-compliant WHOIS services for each of the gTLDs that it operates as a Registry Operator for both gTLDs and ccTLDs. The RSPʹs thick WHOIS solution is production proven, highly flexible, and scalable with a track record of 100% availability over the past 10 years.

The Applicant will comply with all the data escrow requirements documented in the Registry Data Escrow (“RyDE”) Specification of the Registry Agreement and has a contract in place with Iron Mountain Intellectual Property Management, Inc. (“IM”) for RyDE Services. The Applicant and its RSP will in conjunction with Iron Mountain work to ensure that the escrow deposit process is compliant 100% of the time.


Reputation

The Applicant will ensure that the Registry enjoys an excellent reputation through its core focus on creating a secure, sustainable, and specialized gTLD, thus supporting ICANN’s primary goals for the new gTLD program in promoting consumer trust, consumer choice, competition and innovation.

The Applicant will strive to become a reputable and successful new gTLD by providing secure, fast and reliable customer service throughout the registration life cycle of all domains in the gTLD.

The Applicant will endeavour to ensure that only non-fraudulent Registrants have domain names in the gTLD via a WHOIS that is searchable, thick and reliable and by being highly responsive to complaints from legal rights owners. The Applicant will further implement an industry leading range of Abuse Prevention and Mitigation policies and procedures as well as RPMs.

The Applicant will provide the financial and operational stability to protect Registrants and ensure the reputation of the Registry. The Applicant has estimated the maximum costs of the critical functions for a three year period by taking the largest single year cost estimate (year 5) and multiplying this by 3. If the calculation used a lower figure the costs estimate would not be at the potential highest amount during the 5 years and the COI instrument would be too small in order to fund the costs of the 5 critical functions for at least 3 years.

The Applicant has decided to commit to providing the highest level of protection to Registrants and Stakeholders by providing ICANN with a COI for the maximum amount as recommended by ICANN in its COI Guidance. This ensures the Registry is reputable, remains conservative and mirrors ICANN’s core objectives. In a worst case scenario where the Applicant will not receive any revenue Registrants will be protected not only by the COI, but also by the fact that the Applicant has enough capital to operate for over 3 years.

Question 18(b)(ii) What do you anticipate your proposed gTLD will add to the current space, in terms of competition, differentiation, or innovation?

It is expected that .hotel will provide significant competition for existing and forthcoming gTLDs. The .hotel gTLD will provide a blank canvas of second level domains that will inevitably lead to increased consumer choice and significant innovation from the sector. It will allow Registrants to seek new and varied ways to separate themselves from the competition.

Competition

The Applicant will enhance competition by allowing new Registrants to create new online products and services serving the global marketplace and connecting geographically diverse Registrants and users with a common affinity for the specialized subject matter exemplified by the new gTLD. The new gTLD process and its resulting gTLDs are likely to incentivize top-level domains to improve the security and quality of their online products and services as well as introducing new ones. Thus, this gTLD will benefit consumers by increasing the likelihood of new innovative online products and services.The addition of a new gTLD such as .hotel will also increase competition between existing registries.

The Applicant will promote competition to the benefit of the Registrants by amongst other things:

- Building a healthy growth trend of domain registrations to validate the specialty space
- Promote the migration of sector relevant content from other TLDs
- Maintaining competitive pricing of domains

Differentiation

Currently, there is no gTLD available on the Internet that signifies the specialized products, services, and subject matter encompassed by this gTLD. The gTLD string itself will give a clear indication to website visitors that the site has content relevant to the sector. This will result in the gTLD becoming globally recognizable and viewed as a trusted source of goods, services and information.

Innovation

The gTLD will demonstrate innovation through cutting edge RPMs.

Firstly the Applicant considers the Protection of Intergovernmental Organization (ʺIGOʺ) names to be very important. The Applicant will use strings registered as second level domains in the .int gTLD as the basis for this protection. To register in the .int domain, the Registrants must be an IGO that meets the requirements found in RFC 1591. The Applicant will reserve these strings and only allow for their future release if an IGO on the “reserve list” wishes to make use of the protected string in the gTLD and provides the Applicant with sufficient documentation.


Finally if a Registrant during sunrise and landrush applies to register a domain name identical to a capital city name of a country or territory listed in the ISO 3166-1 standard it will receive a Capital City Claims (“CCC”) notification stating this. Subsequently they will have to reply unconditionally agreeing to comply with requirements to protect the reputation of the capital city and any further terms.

These functions will enhance Internet stability, security and will demonstrate to Registrars, Registrants, and end-users of the Registry that abusive or malicious conduct will not be tolerated. They will further contribute significantly to the integrity of the gTLD enabling an environment where stakeholders can innovate with confidence.

Question 18(b)(iii) What goals does your proposed gTLD have in terms of user experience?

The Applicant’s goals for the new gTLD are to provide a trusted, secure, and user friendly environment whereby domain names and content relating to its specific affinity group can flourish.

The Applicant believes that the success of the gTLD will be determined by the sector’s key stakeholders globally. The Applicant believes that stakeholders should have the opportunity to influence the gTLD and the way it is governed. Accordingly, the Applicant is establishing a Governance Council (“GC”), to serve as an advisory body.

.hotel will be developed with consumer trust, choice and satisfaction in mind and after the initial 2 years, the Applicant will conduct a survey to analyse the gTLDʹs success in these areas to help further improve the user experience.

To ensure a high level of service the Applicant will further measure:

- Service Availability Targets for the Critical Registry Functions
- The number of abuse incidents and takedowns
- ICANN Compliance
- Rights protection incidents (i.e. UDRP and URS)
- WHOIS data accuracy

The Applicant intends to promote consumer choice by providing the following:

- Highly available and geographically diverse Registrar distribution channel;
- Effective sunrise and trademark services.

Question 18(b)(iv) Provide a complete description of the applicantʹs intended registration policies in support of the goals listed above.

Registration Policies

The purpose and goal of the Applicant’s policies are to ensure competition, fairness, trust and reliability for Registrars, Registrants, the user community, and other stake holders, while maintaining security and stability for the gTLD.

General Policy

Aside from certain start-up mechanisms, all domain names will generally be registered on a first-come, first-served basis. A Trademark Claims service will be offered for the first 90 days of general registration, with the intent of providing clear notice to potential Registrants of the existing rights of trademark owners with registered trademarks in the Trademark Clearinghouse.

Registration Policies

As per ICANN’s requirements, the Applicant will be operating both a Sunrise and Landrush period ahead of general availability for the gTLD.

Governance Council

The Applicant is establishing a the GC, to be comprised of key sector stakeholders that will serve as an advisory body. Each GC will elect its own Board of Directors, which will be responsible for self-governance, the recommendation of sector-specific registration policies,the formulation of guidance on intellectual property and other best practices related to the gTLD.


The Applicant aims to develop an Abuse Prevention and Mitigation Working Group in conjunction with the GC. It will give the Applicant’s team advice on abuse preventions and mitigation and how this may effect registration policies. The group will meet to regularly discuss the latest trends in domain name abuse and the most effective way to prevent and remedy them.

Question 18(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.

Data and Privacy Policies

The Applicant shall comply with all the Data, WHOIS, and Privacy requirements in the Applicant Guidebook required by ICANN. The Applicant will take all possible steps to maintain the security and privacy of information or data that it may collect in connection with the planned function and usage of names domains, and will remain in compliance with all confidentiality and security regulations in relevant jurisdictions. This data will be held by the Applicant in accordance with the Registry Agreement that the Applicant will execute with ICANN.

The Applicant has further ensured that its suppliers also understand that keeping information secure and private is of crucial importance and will take all available steps to maintain the security and privacy of information collected from the Applicants in the Sunrise, Landrush and General Availability Phases.

Question 18(b) Describe whether and in what ways outreach and communications will help to achieve your projected benefits.

The Applicant plans on making the gTLD the premier gTLD where individuals and organizations can register, build and maintain websites relating to their specific interest area. Thus, communication with the public and development of an outreach campaign are important goals in connection with the gTLD.

During the gTLD evaluation process, the Applicant plans to conduct a two-to-three month communications campaign aimed at reaching sector stakeholders and informing them of the gTLD’s mission and the opportunity to participate in the GC. The communication outreach will include email communications to hundreds of leading sector organizations. It will also be accompanied by the launch of a website for communicating information about the gTLD and allowing interested members of the related sector to express interest in serving on the GC. Other communications efforts, including but not limited to, press releases and social media campaigns may all be initiated to raise further awareness regarding the gTLD.

Shortly after completing the evaluation process and being awarded the gTLD, the Applicant will institute marketing and outreach efforts to inform the public about the new gTLD, its launch schedule, and its intended affinity group. The Applicant will use different outreach and communications methods and venues to get the new gTLD mission and message out to the public, including but not limited to the following: online and print press releases, communications with various media outlets, domain name sector groups, mobile apps and various social media platforms. The GC will be used as a further means of outreach and communication to the Internet community.
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