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

gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.bmwBayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaftthomsentrampedach.comView
The Applicant, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (“BMW”) a publicly-held stock corporation located in Germany and is one of the most successful manufacturers of automobiles and motorcycles in the world. The BMW Group (referring to BMW’s corporate umbrella name and BMW’s network of subsidiaries worldwide) designs and produces premium vehicles under its 3 flagship brands, BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce, each of which is a leader in its respective segment of the automotive industry.

As a global company, the BMW Group operates 25 production and assembly facilities in 14 countries and has a global sales network consisting of subsidiaries, authorized importers and authorized dealers in more than 140 countries. In 2011, the BMW Group sold about 1.67 million cars and more than 113,000 motorcycles worldwide. The profit before tax for the financial year 2011 for the BMW Group was EUR 7.4 billion on revenues amounting to EUR 68.8 billion. At 31 December 2011, the BMW Group had a workforce of approximately 100,000 employees.

The success of the BMW Group has always been built on long-term thinking and responsible action. The company has therefore established ecological and social sustainability, comprehensive product responsibility and a clear commitment to conserving resources as integral parts of its strategy. As a result of its efforts, the BMW Group has been ranked industry leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes for the last seven years.

To continue and further improve on its current success, BMW is focusing on product substance, innovation and customer orientation in order to set itself apart from the competition.


A.1 The BMW brand

BMW owns and maintains trademark registrations for the BMW name and roundel logo in over 140 countries worldwide. BMW, as no other brand, stands for sheer driving pleasure and efficiency in equal measure.

In use since 1917, the BMW mark enjoys unquestionable fame as a result of extensive and long use and advertising, and favorable public acceptance and recognition worldwide. Indeed, the BMW mark has become one of the most recognized brands in the world. Recently, the BMW mark was ranked 15th of the “Top 100 Brands” and valued at more than $24 billion by Interbrand in 2011. The 2011 Reptrak study ranked BMW as the 4th most reputable brand in the world, the highest rank for any automotive brand.

Along with manufacturing, selling, and distributing an array of automobiles and motorcycles under the BMW brand, BMW also provides numerous services under the BMW trademark, including banking and financing services, leasing, insurance, maintenance, repair and mobility services. In addition, BMW uses and licenses its BMW name and mark on a wide variety of lifestyle and merchandising products such as clothing, watches, sunglasses and leather goods.

Under the BMW brand, BMW is also involved in organizing and sponsoring a wide variety of cultural initiatives and is engaged in supporting modern and contemporary art, jazz and classical music, as well as architecture and design. BMW is also involved in the sporting world, with its activities ranging from participating in and organizing motorsport events, to sponsoring sporting events on a global and national level, such as marathons, tennis tournaments and international skiing events, as well as the upcoming London Olympic Games.


B. BMW and the Internet

BMW extensively promotes its products and services under the BMW mark on the Internet.

BMW has long established a strong Internet presence through its many domain registrations in the existing TLD spaces. Since as early as 1996, BMW has used its websites as worldwide information channels for its business. BMW’s main website, accessible via the domain name BMW.COM, receives many millions of hits each month. It has created countless national websites on ccTLDs to support its sales and distribution at a local market level, and early on it made use of TLDs that have other non-geographic purposes, such as its website on BMW.TV, used to make videos available to the public on its own online channel long before YouTube became popular.

BMW is also very active and successful in social media channels. Its global Facebook community, for example, currently has more than 8 million followers, the largest following of any automotive brand in the world. In 2011, the social media consultancy Sociagility ranked BMW’s social brand value (measuring a brand’s popularity, receptiveness, interaction, network reach and trust) 18th overall, the highest ranking of any automotive brand.

Furthermore, with the latest innovations from its BMW ConnectedDrive concept, BMW contributes in a unique way to driving pleasure by connecting drivers to their vehicles and the environment, not only through GPS but also through the Internet and mobile phone applications. BMW, for example, was the first automobile manufacturer to offer its drivers Google Internet access from an on-vehicle computer. BMW is also the first automobile manufacturer to provide on-vehicle computer access to Facebook and Twitter through its BMW mobile phone app, BMW Connected. BMW is constantly creating new ways to keep its drivers and customers connected.


C. BMW and dotBrand:

With this application for the gTLD “.BMW,” BMW seeks to underline its position as a digital leader and innovator within the automotive industry.

The “.BMW” top-level domain will enable the company to communicate with all of its dealers, partners, affiliates, customers, investors and the general public, and to display information about the BMW brand, in a secure and unified manner. The “.BMW” top-level domain will further provide a single location where customers may research product information or learn about new models and features, and where authorized dealers or affiliates may advertise in a BMW-endorsed, authenticated space.

The “.BMW” space will provide the company and its agents with a single, multi-functional and well-maintained forum through which to communicate to their clients and prospective consumers, thus providing BMW with a new medium for communication and customer orientation. Additionally, Internet users will have the comfort and peace of mind that comes with knowing they are interacting with the company in a safe online space, and that the information they are viewing is authentic and up-to-date.

The “.BMW” Registry Service Provider will manage the Internet space under the direct control of BMW. This will allow the distribution and exchange of information between BMW, their subsidiaries, official importers, dealers, customers, and other relevant parties by means of, but not limited to, websites, social networks, email and other technologies that will reside within the “.BMW” domain name space.

BMW envisages the TLD to follow a single-registrant model, wherein all registrations within the space are held by the BMW company itself. Appropriate corporate divisions, subsidiaries, authorized importers and dealers, and other authorized or affiliated entities may apply to the trademark department of the Applicant company to request authorization to license the use of such registrations. BMW shall review such requests and, in its sole discretion, may grant such licenses on a case-by-case basis. In all cases, BMW shall monitor the use of all “.BMW” domain names to ensure that the content of the associated websites remains current and appropriate to the
“.BMW” space.

Additional TLD web page hierarchy will be developed through the creative use of second-level domains and URL-shortening. For example, “USED.BMW” might offer a starting page for authorized resellers, or such domains may be creatively used in connection with international marketing campaigns, e.g. “2ORIGINALS.BMW” (rather than 2ORIGINALS.COM).
gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.coffeeTrixy Cover, 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.