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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
.music.music LLCfarfurther.comView
How do you expect that your proposed gTLD will benefit registrants, Internet users, and others? Answers should address the following points:

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

Our goal is to work with members of the global music community to create a trusted, secure and restricted TLD for accredited members of the music community. The dotMusic Registry will provide qualifying registrants the opportunity to register their preferred domain name in a safe, reputable and globally accessible TLD. Registrants will be identified and validated as members of the music community through their existing and maintained membership in existing associations related to the creation and support of music.

The World Wide Web today features a large number and enormous variety of music-related websites. While our business model depends only on modest uptake in the early years, we anticipate that as the .music TLD demonstrates the trust and security of a specialized namespace over time, more and more music-related content and related economic transactions will be moved to the .music TLD from current gTLD and ccTLD domains.

• The .music TLD will meet or exceed the ICANNʹs availability requirements. The .music TLD will operate as an exemplary registry, using best practices and deploying appropriate technology to safeguard creative rights, providing end users assurance about the identity and community qualifications of the TLD’s registrants.
• The .music TLD will use a variety of online scanning tools that search for key words that are commonly used to signal the availability of music distributed without appropriate authorization or in violation of intellectual property rights to aid in mitigating copyright infringement for the music community in general.
• The .music TLD will maintain a reputable marketplace for end-users through our general abuse policies and their active enforcement.

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

Among ICANN’s core values is a fundamental commitment to “Introducing and promoting competition in the registration of domain names where practicable and beneficial in the public interest.” The dotMusic Registry will be a new direct competitor to the current group of global generic TLDs, offering an entirely music-focused environment and branding. Our business plan is to serve musicians in economically-developed, as well as key growing international markets, who will benefit from a TLD registry dedicated to address the unique needs of its community.

The dotMusic Registry’s differentiation will be “supporting and sustaining musical creativity through respect for intellectual property”. More than any of the current community-focused gTLD registries, we will provide end-users a domain space that assures them of the community qualifications and identity of a registrant. The reputation of that registrant is tied to their domain registration through verification of their membership standing by their applicable music association. The dotMusic Registry will directly verify a registrant’s affiliation with a qualifying music association member both at initial application and through annual reviews of each association. Intrinsically, this adds the reputational weight of many music associations (through our .music registrants) to that of the domain name.

The dotMusic Registry’s innovation will focus on two areas: 1) The restricted registrant participation of our string, which we believe is an ideal combination of inclusiveness for all music associations and their members AND validation of community standing, and 2) Our enhanced abuse management programs to ensure the sustainability of the artist and songwriter through protection of their creations.

New gTLD registries have largely focused on North America and European marketplaces. Since music is the “universal language”, as the dotMusic Registry, we will offer the .music TLD to international markets, with the goal of a truly global distribution of registrants. To further serve the international market, the dotMusic Registry may at its option, offer the IDN equivalents of .music in other scripts⁄languages.

Our intent is to operate .music with a focus on trust and security for the .music brand. This entails running a robust rights protection program from initiation, which in our case meets - and significantly exceeds - ICANN’s requirements. We will engage an abuse-detection and prevention team, as well as bring on board an experienced and disciplined management team. These, along with other strong provisions (detailed in our answers to 28, 29 and 30), will enable us to act where registrars are remiss in their responsibilities. The dotMusic Registry will have the potential to set new standards for the reduction and mitigation of domain abuse.

3. What goals does your proposed gTLD have in terms of user experience?

The purpose of .music is to provide an online “home” to registrants identified as members of the .music community to hold active registrations for their name or online identity⁄brand The Internet user will know that they are dealing with a registrant that is identity-verified and compliant in their use and distribution of intellection property. This assurance allows Internet users of the .music TLD to have high expectations of trust and security regarding content purchased or consumed. These are intrinsic in the qualifications associated with our defined community.

The dotMusic Registry will deploy DNS Security Extensions, also known as DNSSEC, for the .music TLD. DNSSEC will help prevent data integrity attacks, and the risk of users being diverted or hijacked to malicious or unsafe sites, which often are involved in identify theft. DNSSEC deployment will ensure that visitors to .music domain names are in fact reaching their intended website and not subject to malicious activity such as phishing or identity theft. We will also abide by all policies and practices required by ICANN in the Registry Agreement and⁄or via any Consensus Policy.

In support of this registration requirement, we make a firm commitment to protecting users of our TLD and to maintaining the TLD as a reputable space. Our .music will have powerful policies and procedures for dealing with abusive registrations, and the illegal or malicious use of domain names. We describe those plans fully in our response to Question 28 (“Abuse Prevention and Mitigation”).

The introduction of .music will include a rollout planned with a primary goal of protecting trademark rights and intellectual property. We describe those plans fully in our responses to Question 18(c) and Question 29 (“Rights Protection Mechanisms”).

Users of the .music TLD will also have the use of the WHOIS service; registrants and other contacts will have their contact details available via WHOIS. Please see our answer to Question 26 regarding “searchable WHOIS” and rate-limiting. Limiting the mining of WHOIS data will mitigate spammers and other malicious parties who abuse access to WHOIS services by mining the data for their own illegitimate purposes.

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

Musical artists, musicians, songwriters and music professionals who are validated members of a qualifying music association will be permitted to register second level names (name, online identity⁄brand) in the .music TLD. As such, the TLD will have a restricted registration policy so that Internet users are assured that a .music registrant is in fact a member of at least one or more Member Organizations in the Global Music Community. The TLD is supported by music organizations and associations from around the globe, and will be available to registrants in all areas of the world. Since many qualifying music associations themselves are global in nature and⁄or accept membership from individuals globally, we anticipate rapid international participation. Domain registrations may be accepted, but will not resolve until the registrant has been identified and validated as a member of the music community via their membership in at least one existing association related to the creation and support of music. Second level .music domain names can be registered by individuals, businesses and not-for-profit entities.

Members of the community of musical artists, musicians, songwriters, and music professionals have highly varying needs and use websites in a wide variety of ways. In addition, because .music will operate as a global registry from inception, formatting flexibility is required to accommodate bandwidth constraints that may be experienced in the developing world. Accordingly, the registry will not mandate any particular formatting or usage. Registrants must, however, hold valid rights to all materials displayed on and⁄or distributed through their specific site. We anticipate this will result in innovative and creative websites by .music registrants.

Reserved Names:

In .music we will reserve the following classes of domain names, which will not be available to registrants via the Sunrise or subsequent periods:

• The reserved names required in Specification 5 of the new gTLD Registry Agreement.
• The geographic names required in Specification 5 of the new gTLD Registry Agreement, and as per our response to Question 21. See our response to Question 22 (“Protection of Geographic Names”) for details.
• The registry operator will reserve its own name and variations thereof, and registry operations names (such as nic.music, and registry.music,), so that we can point them to our Web site. Reservation of the registry operator’s names was standard in ICANN’s past gTLD contracts.
• We will also reserve names related to ICANN and Internet standards bodies (iana.music, ietf.music, www.music, etc.), for delegation of those names to the relevant organizations upon their request. Reservation of this type of name was standard in ICANN’s past gTLD contracts.
The list of reserved names will be published publicly before the Sunrise period begins, so that registrars and potential registrants will know which names have been set aside.


Premium Names:

• The dotMusic Registry will also designate a set of “premium names,” which will be set aside for distribution via special mechanisms. Premium names have been a standard feature of gTLD and ccTLD rollouts since 2005. The list of premium names will be published publicly before the Sunrise period begins, so that registrars and potential registrants will know which names have been set aside.
• Premium names will be distributed by application only. We will accept applications that describe intended use of a given premium name that best supports the development of the .music community consistently with its defining criteria. The policies and procedures for receiving, reviewing, and awarding premium name applications will be posted on the .music web site in advance, based on input from the .music Policy Advisory Board. We will create policies and procedures that ensure clear, consistent, fair, and ethical distribution of names. For example, all employees of the dotMusic Registry operator, and its contractors, will be strictly prohibited from bidding in auctions for domains in the TLD. As an additional protection for Rights Holders we will continue to use the Trademark Clearinghouse during General Availability (Trademark Claims Service) for an additional 60 days, for notifications of new registrations only where the string is a complete match with a filing in the Trademark Clearinghouse. Additionally, we will address this process asynchronously to the registration process and in consideration of the technical capabilities⁄limitations of the Trademark Clearinghouse, once an implementation model for the Clearinghouse has been finalized.

Dispute Resolution Mechanisms:

• Registrants and rights holders will have access to several dispute mechanisms. These are fair and transparent processes to adjudicate claims to domain names, and they also protect registrants against reverse domain hijacking.
• Names registered in the Sunrise Period will be subject to a Sunrise Dispute Policy. This policy and procedure will be in effect for a finite time period, to provide special protection of qualified trademark rights. Please see our response to Question 29 (“Rights Protection Mechanisms”) for full details.
• As required by ICANN, .music domains will be subject to the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). Please see our response to Question 29 (“Rights Protection Mechanisms”) for full details.
• As required by ICANN, .music domains will also be subject to the Universal Rapid Suspension (URS) policy. See the URS specifications in Applicant Guidebook Module 5. Please see our answer to Question 29 (“Rights Protection Mechanisms”) for full details about how we will provision for our URS responsibilities.
• We will provision systems to take in and administrate cases as per ICANN’s Registrar Transfer Dispute Resolutions Policy ( http:⁄⁄www.icann.org⁄en⁄transfers⁄dispute-policy-12jul04.htm ) This process will allow registrars to protect registrants by filing disputes about inter-registrar transfers that they believe were unauthorized or improperly executed.
• MEDRP: .music will support the Music Eligibility Dispute Resolution Requirements Procedure. This dispute mechanism will be available to members of the .music community and end-users to file claims against registrants of the .music domain for violations of the .music eligibility and use community rules and policies. We will select an adjudication service from the list of ICANN approved arbitrators to facilitate MEDRP claims (please see Q28 and Q29 for further details).


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.

We will have several measures for protecting the privacy or confidential information of registrants or users.

• Please see our answer to Question 26 regarding “searchable WHOIS” and rate-limiting. That section contains details about how we will limit the mining of WHOIS data by spammers and other parties who abuse access to the WHOIS.
• Please also see our answer to Question 28, regarding the use of proxy and privacy services. We will allow the use of such services, where they comply with ICANN policies and requirements, which can protect the privacy and personal data of registrants from spammers and other parties that mine zone files and WHOIS data. If ICANN establishes a privacy⁄proxy service accreditation program, registrars will be required to use accredited providers only. We are aware that there are parties who may use privacy services to protect themselves from political or religious persecution, and we respect this need. In Question 28, we also describe our proposed policies to limit the use of privacy and proxy services by malicious parties, thereby reducing e-crime within the TLD.
• As per the requirements of the new gTLD Registry Agreement (Article 2.17), we shall notify each of our registrars regarding the purposes for which data about any identified or identifiable natural person (“Personal Data”) submitted to the Registry Operator by such registrar is collected and used, and the intended recipients (or categories of recipients) of such Personal Data. (This data is basically the registrant and contact data required to be published in the WHOIS.) We will also require each registrar to obtain the consent of each registrant in the TLD for such collection and use of Personal Data. As the registry operator, we shall not use or authorize the use of Personal Data in a way that is incompatible with the notice provided to registrars.
• As the registry operator we shall take significant steps to protect Personal Data collected from registrars from loss, misuse, unauthorized disclosure, alteration, or destruction. In our responses to Question 30 (“Security Policy”) and Question 38 (“Escrow”) we detail the security policies and procedures we will use to protect the registry system and the data contained there from unauthorized access and loss.
• As registry operator we plan to use ICANN accredited registrars who agree to a variety of information technology policies and procedures designed to verify registrant eligibility, validate registrant contact data, and protect registrant data from unauthorized access, use, or alteration. These may include standards for access to the registrar and registry system, password management protocols. Please see our response to Question 30 (“Security Policy”) for details.

• We also plan to offer a “registry lock” service, designed to help protect participating registrants’ contact data from unauthorized modification, and against unauthorized domain transfers and deletions. Please see Questions 23 (“Registry Services”) for details.

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

Our goal for .music is to create a trusted brand and secure name space for accredited members of the .music community. To achieve this, we will emphasize distribution channels internationally – not just in one or more focused regions. Our business plans call for focused outreach through our accredited community associations, who in connection with verifying registrant eligibility, may interact directly with ICANN-accredited registrars that have demonstrated their ability and willingness to adhere to the .music standards. As part of that relationship development, we will design our communication approach to initially target those accredited music associations seeking to work with registrars to distribute .music domains as potential resellers to their members.

We anticipate that ICANNʹs outreach and communications program will benefit all new gTLDs. Media coverage about the availability of new TLDs will validate and reinforce our efforts. The more that members of the .music community understand that new TLDs are available, the faster they are likely to adopt our .music registrations and other new TLDs.
gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.loansDotserve Inc.radixregistry.comView
1. GOAL OF .LOANS

1.1 SPECIALTY

Our goal for .Loans in terms of area of specialty is to provide a trusted, secure and restricted TLD among qualifying new registrants in the loan and mortgage business. The .Loans registry will provide qualifying registrants the opportunity for their preferred domain name on a restricted global TLD. Our area of specialty will be the global loan and mortgage industry. Over time, as the .Loans TLD demonstrates the trust and security of a specialized namespace, more and more loan related content and transactions will be moved to the .Loans TLD from current gTLD and ccTLD domains.

1.2 SERVICE LEVELS

Our goal for .Loans in terms of service levels is to go above and beyond the ICANN SLAs. ICANN provides for its expected SLA in Specification 10 in the Registry Agreement in the Applicant guidebook.

We have engaged ARI Registry Services (ARI) to deliver services for this TLD. ARI provides registry services for a number of TLDs including the .au ccTLD.

Our contract with ARI is attached to our response to Q46. This contract details the SLA we intend on achieving with this TLD. As can be seen in the contract we have exceeded the ICANN required SLA on every parameter.

Our response to Q34 and Q35 provides details on ARI’s distributed anycast DNS network. ARI’s DNS network provides for 16 geo distributed sites resulting in a very low resolution latency for end-users, amongst the lowest in the industry.

It is our objective to provide 100% uptime, a resilient global DNS infrastructure, and very low latency in terms of DNS resolution for this TLD

1.3 REPUTATION

Reputation of our TLD is of paramount importance to us. The reputation of our TLD directly relates to how end-users on the internet perceive our Registrants. We will ensure the highest reputation of .Loans by ensuring the following –
* Maintaining a high quality bar with respect to Registrants in the TLD
* Well defined Acceptable usage and content policies
* Well defined eligibility requirements and name selection policies
* Well defined dispute resolution mechanisms
* Ensuring Whois accuracy to support abuse mitigation
* Well defined and implemented abuse mitigation processes
* Well defined and implemented rights protection mechanisms
* Exceptional service levels

To this effect we have created unprecedented Abuse mitigation policies and Rights protection mechanisms that go significantly above and beyond mandatory requirements and common practice described in considerable detail in our response to Q28 and Q29. We also commit to extremely high service levels that go beyond the stipulated service levels in the applicant guidebook.

2. CONTRIBUTION OF .LOANS TO THE NAMESPACE

2.1 CONTRIBUTION IN TERMS OF COMPETITION

Per ICANN’s Bylaws as amended June 24, 2011, ICANN’s core value number six is “Introducing and promoting competition in the registration of domain names where practicable and beneficial in the public interest.”

* The .Loans registry will be a new direct and boutique competitor to the current group of global generic TLDs. The .Loans registry will introduce consumer choice by creating an alternative viable option that is much more trusted and secure for loan and mortgage businesses to register domain names. It will create competition amongst Registries with respect to serving the loan and mortgage community and provide an alternative for loan and mortgage businesses who wish to establish an online presence.

* Most gTLDs have largely focused on developed markets with 70%+ internet penetration. Domain Name and website growth is yet to occur in other developing markets like India, Brazil, Russia, China, Indonesia etc. However as the market for websites and domain names grows in these economies the existing gTLD space in TLDs like .com, .net, .org etc will already be saturated with all tier 1 names no longer available to markets like asia, africa. 70% of .com check availability checks return unavailable (data obtained from our Internal Research data). New companies have to resort to 2nd tier long multi-word names for their businesses in these markets. .Loans will broaden the namespace by providing an alternative for loan and mortgage businesses in developing markets to register the domain name of their choice creating competition.

2.2 CONTRIBUTION IN TERMS OF DIFFERENTIATION

The .Loans registry’s differentiation will be “accountability in practise”. More than any of the other global gTLD registries, we will provide end-users a domain space that assures the qualifications and identity of a registrant.

For the first time, loan and mortgage businesses will have a viable option to provide to their end-users a URL they can trust. Consumers of such a businesses will know to only trust a URL that ends in .Loans. This will almost eliminate phishing scams.

.Loans will also allow Registrants in the loan and mortgage community to differentiate themselves from the 200+ million domain names out there. As of now a typical loan and mortgage business’s domain name appears identical to any other domain name in a .gTLD (com) or .ccTLD extension (eg .in). .Loans provides the ability for Registrants to create a differentiated identity wherein just by looking at the URL end-users will be assured of the fact that they are dealing with a loan and mortgage business.

Lastly .Loans will provide loan and mortgage businesses to register more desirable and shorter names as opposed to names they would have otherwise registered in existing gTLDs due to the high saturation of the existing namespaces.

2.3 CONTRIBUTION IN TERMS OF INNOVATION

.Loan’s provides a trusted and secure namespace through various innovative measures described below –

* Restricted registrant participation with extensive registrant verification providing an assurance to end-users of the identity of the registrant
* Despite the prevalence of English as a language of commerce, past gTLD registries have largely focused on North America and European marketplaces. We will be offering the .Loans TLD to international markets, with the goal of a truly global distribution of registrants.
* Our intent is to operate .Loans with a focus on trust and security for the .Loans brand. This entails running robust abuse mitigation programs and pioneering Rights Protection Mechanisms from initiation, which in our case not only meets ICANN’s requirements, but extends significantly beyond it as described in our response to Q28 and Q29

3. USER EXPERIENCE GOALS

.Loans considers both its Registrants and the end-users that access .Loans websites as its users. Our goal is to create a clean, trusted and highly reliable namespace and provide an outstanding user experience to both Registrants and end-users of .Loans.

Registrants of .Loans have an assurance of a scalable, resilient registry with 100% uptime, low latency, and the highest security standards. Registrants will have the option to register the domain name of their choice, without much saturation of the namespace. Our registration policies alongwith our eligibility criteria, name selection policies and abuse mitigation policies ensure that Registrants will get advantages like higher recognition, better branding, shorter names, elimination of phishing, identity verification and enhanced consumer trust

End users who visit a .Loans URL have an assurance that they are visiting the website of a loan and mortgage business that conducts business under that name. They get the benefit of a trusted secure namespace and are unlikely to be victims of phishing attacks. Our content and acceptable use policies and abuse mitigation processes ensure that end-users are benefited from a clean namespace. These are described in further detail in our response to Q28 and Q29.

3.1 AUGMENTED LEVEL OF SECURITY AS PER BITS RECOMMENDATIONS

This TLD is a financial TLD and as such requires special security considerations. Our goal with this TLD is to provide a safer and secure browsing experience for consumers of this TLD. The Security Standards Working Group (SSWG) formed by BITS drafted a set of policy recommendations that should be applied to financial TLDs The policy comprises of a set of 31 recommendations that should be adopted by ICANN in evaluating any applicant of a financial TLD.

We welcome the recommendations from SSWG. We have adopted all of the recommendations posted by BITS in the form of a letter to ICANN at [http:⁄⁄www.icann.org⁄en⁄correspondence⁄aba-bits-to-beckstrom-crocker-20dec11-en.pdf] except recommendation 23, 30 and 31 which we believe need to be further looked at.

Our description of our implementation of these recommendations is provided in our responses to Q24, Q25, Q27, Q28, Q29, Q30, Q40 and Q43

4. REGISTRATION POLICIES IN SUPPORT OF GOALS

4.1 GENERAL NAMES

The goals of .Loans are outlined in the sections above. These goals are supported by the following artifacts:
* Registration policies and processes
* Acceptable usage policies and content guidelines
* Abuse mitigation processes
* Rights protection mechanisms
* Dispute resolution polices

To this effect we have created unprecedented Abuse mitigation policies and Rights protection mechanisms that go significantly above and beyond mandatory requirements and common practice. The salient aspects of all of the above are described below:

* DotServe Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary within the Directi Group. The Directi Group runs various businesses including several ICANN Accredited Domain Registrars (ResellerClub.com and BigRock.com) and Web Hosting companies. With over four million active domain names registered through its registrars, Directi has significant experience (over 10 years) of managing domain name abuse mitigation and rights protection. Directi has been heralded as a white hat registrar and the undisputed leader with respect to abuse mitigation.

* Our Abuse and compliance processes will be run by the Directi Group

* Proxy Registrations will not be permitted in .Loans

* .Loans has a well defined eligibility criteria and name selection policy. General domain names in .Loans will only be activated after a thorough check against our eligibility criteria, name selection policy and identity verification at the time of registration resulting in a zero abuse namespace at registration time.

* We have an elaborate and detailed Accepted usage and content policy that covers over 11 macro forms of violations

* .Loans will create a zero-tolerance reputation when it comes to abuse

* We have a defined SLA for responding to abuse complaints ensuring guaranteed turn-around time on any abuse complaint depending on its severity

* We will work closely with LEA and other security groups to mitigate abuse within TLD by providing them with special interfaces (eg searcheable whois) and interacting with them regularly in terms of knowledge sharing.

* Other abuse mitigation steps we undertake include profiling, blacklisting, proactive quality reviews, industry collaboration and information sharing, regular sampling, contractual enforcements and sanctions

* The protection of trademark rights is a core goal of .Loans. .Loans will have a professional plan for rights protection. It will incorporate best practices of existing TLDs, going above and beyond the ICANN mandated RPMs to prevent abusive registrations and rapidly take-down abuse when it does occur.

* Standard RPMs such as Sunrise, Trademarks claims service, URS, UDRP, SDRP, PDDRP, SPOC etc are all provided for. Additional RPMs such as Optional Trademark declaration, profiling and blacklisting, proactive quality reviews, APWG Review and others will also be provided.

The above salient points barely scratch the surface in detailing the steps that .Loans will take in order to build a reputation of operating a clean, secure and trusted namespace. Significant details of all of the above and more are provided in our responses to Q26, Q27, Q28 and Q29

4.2. OTHER NAMES

* We will reserve the following classes of domain names, which will not be available to registrants via the Sunrise or subsequent periods:

** The reserved names required in Specification 5 of the new gTLD Registry Agreement.
** The geographic names required in Specification 5 of the new gTLD Registry Agreement, and as per our response to Question 22. See our response to Question 22 (“Protection of Geographic Names”) for details.
** The registry operator will reserve its own name and variations thereof, and registry operations names (such as nic.Loans, registry.Loans, and www.Loans), so that we can point them to our Web site. Reservation of the registry operator’s names was standard in ICANN’s past gTLD contracts.
** We will also reserve names related to ICANN and Internet standards bodies (iana.Loans, ietf.Loans, w3c.Loans, etc.), for delegation of those names to the relevant organizations upon their request. Reservation of this type of names was standard in ICANN’s past gTLD contracts. The list of reserved names will be published publicly before the Sunrise period begins, so that registrars and potential registrants will know which names have been set aside.

* We will reserve generic names which will be set aside for distribution via special mechanisms.

5. PROTECTING PRIVACY OF REGISTRANTS’ OR USERS’ INFORMATION

.Loans is committed to providing a secure and trusted namespace to its Registrants and end-users. To that extent we will have several measures for protecting the privacy or confidential information of registrants or users -

* Our Whois service (web-based whois, port 43 whois and searchable whois) all have built in abuse prevention mechanisms to prevent unauthorized access, data mining, data scraping and any other abusive behavior. Details of this are provided in our response to Q26

* As per the requirements of the new gTLD Registry Agreement (Article 2.17), we shall notify each of our registrars regarding the purposes for which data about any identified or identifiable natural person (“Personal Data”) submitted to the Registry Operator by such registrar is collected and used, and the intended recipients (or categories of recipients) of such Personal Data. (This data is basically the registrant and contact data required to be published in the WHOIS.)

* We will also require each registrar to obtain the consent of each registrant in the TLD for such collection and use of Personal Data. As the registry operator, we shall not use or authorize the use of Personal Data in a way that is incompatible with the notice provided to registrars.

* As the registry operator we shall take significant steps to protect Personal Data collected from registrars from loss, misuse, unauthorized disclosure, alteration, or destruction. In our responses to Q24, Q30 and Q38 we detail the security policies and procedures we will use to protect the registry system and the data contained there from unauthorized access and loss.

* As registry operator we impose certain operational standards for our registrars. In order gain and maintain accreditation for our TLD, we require them to adhere to certain information technology policies designed to help protect registrant data. These include standards for access to the registry system. Please see our response to Q24, Q25 and Q30 for details.

* We offer a “registry lock” service, designed to help protect participating registrants’ contact data from unauthorized modification, and against unauthorized domain transfers and deletions. Please see our response to Q27 for details.

* We follow all of the security specific recommendations in the policy drafted by BITS for financial TLDs. Our description of our implementation of these recommendations is provided in our responses to Q24, Q25, Q27, Q28, Q29, Q30, Q40 and Q43

* .Loans implements DNSSEC at the zone which guarantees origin authentication of DNS data, authenticated denial of existence, and data integrity. This protects end-users from a man-in-the-middle attack protecting the privacy of data of end-users.

6. OUTREACH AND COMMUNICATIONS

Our goal for .Loans is to create a trusted and secure name space for loan and mortgage businesses. To achieve this, we will emphasize distribution channels internationally – not just in one or more focused regions.

* We will focus our outreach through industry channels. We will develop relationships with regional authorities to assist in our registration verification process. As part of that relationship development, we will design our communication approach to target the loan and mortgage businesses in each individual region.

* We will also engage in relevant PR and outreach programs as well as ensure appropriate publication of information on our website.

* Lastly we will engage with ICANN Registrars worldwide to utilize their presence and channels to generate awareness concerning .Loans.

The communication and outreach will focus on:

* Education amongst the loan and mortgage industry
* Generating awareness of our Registration policies, Acceptable usage and content policies, Abuse mitigation processes and Rights protection mechanisms

This completes our response to Q18(b).