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

Prototypical answer:

i. Goal of of the .corsica TLD in terms of areas of specialty, service levels, or reputation

The .corsica TLD will be a new way of asserting Corsica’s identity and presence on the Internet. It is expected to contribute to the image of Corsica as a culturally and economically vibrant region of Europe. Based on the research carried out in preparation for this application we anticipate that it will be widely embraced by the people and business owners of Corsica, as well as the community of Corsicans worldwide who share a strong sense of attachment to the region and its culture.

There are two rationales for the creation of a new .corsica TLD: economic and cultural.

- In economic terms, the .corsica TLD is expected to act as a catalyst for the production of new content and the development of new online services, with positive direct and indirect economic benefits in terms of increased revenues and job creation.

- Culturally, the new TLD will become a new Internet signifier, a new means of organising, archiving and searching for content on the region of Corsica and its people. As such, it is viewed by the Regional Government as a vital means of building up the immaterial cultural heritage of the region.

Areas of speciality

Initially, the .corsica TLD will be deployed as a new community-based gTLD without specific areas of speciality. However, in the course of its implementation independent needs-assessment studies will be conducted regarding the creation of second-level domains such hotel.corsica, wine.corsica, association.corsica etc. The modalities for the management of these ‘speciality’ sub domains will be defined at a later date.

- University of Corsica: creation of .univ or .universite sub-domain

The University of Corsica with a student population of around 4000 will be a major vector for the promotion of the .corsica TLD. A premier research centre for the study of renewable energies, oceanography, firefighting studies, natural resource management, sustainable development and regional-level government studies, cultural studies, and information and communication technologies, the University will be among the first major employers of the region to deploy the new TLD. The university is expected to give up the current www.univ-corse.fr naming structure in favour of www.univ.corsica format.

- Tourism industry: creation of .hotel sub-domain

The numerous actors of Corsica’s important tourism sector are expected to seize the opportunity of the .corsica TLD with the possible creation of subdomains such as .hotel.corsica, wine.corsica or aoc.corsica.

Service levels

The aim of the .corsica TLD is to offer guarantees in terms of service, security and technical assistance in standing with a world-class gTLD. At the technical level this will be ensured by AFNIC, one of the world’s foremost ccTLDs in terms of domain name registrations, its record on the issue of DNS security, IPv6 deployment etc. and its reputation for technical excellence.

AFNIC will ensure the provision of all critical services required for the function of the .corsica TLD in compliance with ICANN-specified norms. These are:

- DNS resolution in compliance with the obligations listed in Specification 6 section 1.1 of the Registry contract.
- The deployment of DNSSEC in compliance with the obligation listed in Specification 6 section 1.3 of the Registry contract.
- SRS ⁄ EPP domain name registering service (DNS delegation chain and management of registrars as specified in section 4.3 of the CCTP) in conformity with the obligations listed in Specification 6 section 1.2 of the Registry contract.
- Provision of Whois service, Zone File Access and Bulk Registration Data Access to ICANN in conformity with the obligations listed in Specification 4 of the Registry contract.
- Provision of Registry Data Escrow service in conformity with the obligations listed in Specification 3 part A of the Registry contract.

At the main ‘point-of-contact’ level in Ajaccio, this will be ensured by a fully trained and qualified staff. Local staff will be trained in the use of software developed by AFNIC for the purposes of invoicing registrars, the management of domain name portfolios, supervision of critical services of the Registry, and the statistical monitoring of the .corsica TLD.

The registry will have a comprehensive website with features such as a FAQ, downloadable documents including the .corsica TLD Users Charter, policy documents regarding TLD issues, lists of icann accredited registrars, technical documents, contact details etc.

The Regional Government of Corsica plans to encourage the development of local registrars. Various business models are envisaged from the simple resale of domain names bought from the .corsica registry to bundled offers including the purchase of the domain names, hosting facilities, email and technical services, assistance etc.

Reputation

The strong reputation of the .corsica TLD will be critical to its adoption, growth prospects and sustainable implementation in the medium to long-term. Over time the reputation of the .corsica TLD will be maintained and reinforced thanks to its Users’ Charter including clear procedures in case of abusive behaviour (phishing, pharming etc.), enforceable rules to protect trademarks, and measures to protect the privacy of domain name owners in line with international best practices.

ii. What the .corsica TLD will add to the current space, in terms of competition, differentiation, or innovation

Competition

In terms of competitiveness the .corsica TLD will allow Corsicans to promote their goods and services via the Internet using an extension with which they identify more readily than the more generic .fr or .com, .org extensions that are currently available. The .corsica TLD will be presented to the Corsican people as an alternative means of communicating via the Internet and raising the international profile of the region as a whole.

Key to the success of the .corsica TLD will be the way in which it gives registrants a competitive edge over other content and⁄or service providers thanks to the extra ‘visibility’ and searchability which the name provides. Following the delegation of several hundred new gTLDs in 2013, it is understood that the main search engines will be updated in a way that gives greater priority to TLDs, i.e. www.ajaccio-judo-club.corsica is likely to get a higher ranking in search results than www.ajaccio-judo-club.com.

Differentiation

Achieving greater differentiation for Corsican products and services online is one of the primary objectives of the .corsica TLD. This new TLD will allow domain name holders to rationalise their naming strategies (no longer needing to include the word ‘corsica’ lower down the domain name hierarchy), and communicate more effectively with potential contacts or customers with an interest in Corsica. Currently the French word ‘corse’ is, in many instances, used at the second level, however, the creation of a .corsica TLD will serve to simplify and increase the impact of Corsican domain names. To take the example of the ADEC (Regional Development Agency) the name will complete its evolution from www.corse-adec.org to www.adec.corse.fr to www.adec.corsica.

- Main economic sectors affected by .corsica TLD:

Tourism sector: For actors in all sectors of the economy, but especially in the increasingly competitive tourism sector, the .corsica TLD is intended to ensure that operators have all the means at their disposal to maintain their competitive edge.

The management of the .corsica TLD will be fully integrated into the Regional Government of Corsica’s strategic planning regarding the economic development of the region. Hence, as mentioned in our response to question 18b-A, a number of second-level domain names may be delegated, following appropriate feasibility studies and subject to the approval of the Corsican Assembly. These include the extensions ‘vin’ or ‘wine’, ‘aoc’,‘hotel’ or ‘artisan’ so as to be able to create domain names such as:

- name1.fromage.aoc.corsica
- corse-coteaux.wine.corsica
- myhotel.hotels.corsica
- name.artisan.corsica

Innovation

The .corsica TLD will create a new space for innovation and serve as a catalyst for the diversification of online products and services. To this end a communications campaign will be run to encourage the widespread adoption of the new TLD. As mentioned in subsequent sections, this communications campaign will be targeted at specific economic sectors and groups such as the students of the university of Corsica.

The communications campaign will also aim to promote the establishment of local registrars. It is expected that the proximity of these new registrars with the people of Corsica, and the competition between them, will be beneficial in terms of offering services that are tailored to the needs and means of the population.

iii. Goals of the .corsica TLD in terms of user experience

The main goal of the .corsica TLD is to provide Corsicans, with the option of a new community-based TLD that better reflects their cultural identity than, say, .fr or .com. The expectation is that the .corsica TLD will come to be viewed by Corsicans in the same way that .cat is viewed by Catalans. For the broader community of Internet users the .corsica TLD will come to be recognized a badge of quality, not only in terms of content, but also in terms of the stable and secure management of the DNS.

The .corsica will not be run as for-profit enterprise. From the outset the emphasis will be placed on ensuring optimal levels of user experience. Over time the .corsica TLD will become synonymous with quality of content but also in terms of stability, resilience and security.

AFNIC: state-of-the-art back end registry
As the technical operator of the .corsica AFNIC will offer a world class quality of service notably in relation to
- WhoIs
- DNSSEC: Since 2010 counts among the pioneering registries that signs its TLD.
- IPv6 compatibility. AFNIC has been a pioneer in the deployment of IPv6 in France since 2003, and all its services are deployed in IPv6
- EPP: as an implementation whose compliance with standards was universally praised,
- Anycast. AFNIC has fully integrated and mastered this key DNS resolution technology. Since 2009 AFNIC deploys its own Anycast node for hosting high availability DNS services,

Promotion and appropriation of the .corsica ‘brand’

As the Internet continues to grow at an exponential rate and as it becomes harder - even perilous - for ordinary Internet users to navigate, the .corsica TLD will become a new, easily recognizable marker. In terms of user experience the most obvious advantage of the .corsica TLD will be its powerful signifying force at the level of the DNS - more powerful, arguably than the .cat TLD which does not necessarily denote ‘Catalonia’ in the minds of all those who encounter the extension for the first time. In the case of the .corsica TLD there will be no ambiguity.

The sense of belonging to a community which the .corsica TLD brings with it is expected to benefit registrants who feel a strong sense of attachment to the region, yet who do not have the means to reflect this at present at the level of the DNS. The TLD will contribute to defining the local and the global communities of ‘Corsicans’ taking into account the full extent of their diversity and numbers.

iv. Summary of .corsica TLD registration policies in support of the goals listed above.

A comprehensive charter describing registration policies for the .corsica will be prepared and published before the commercialization of the TLD. This document will be prepared in conjunction with AFNIC and a third party consultancy, and submitted to the Corsican parliament for approval, prior to the launch of the TLD. The charter will aim to be sufficiently open to encourage large numbers of registrations from legitimate content and service providers, but sufficiently restrictive and with sufficient provisos to protect the TLD against abusive behaviour. It will contain a complete description of the procedures in case of dispute over a domain name.

1) Pioneer Phase
The Pioneer Phase will start before the new TLD has even been delegated and may be compared more to a marketing campaign. Corporate groups such as the Corsican airline Corsair and Corsica Ferries will be encouraged, during this phase, to show their support for the .corsica project by making a sponsorship-type contribution. As an example of the type of offer that could be made, in exchange for agreeing to advertise the .corsica TLD on their vessels, aircraft, buses, etc. and for a ‘sponsorship’ fee of between 1,000€ and 20,000€, depending on the size of the company, the company will be given a multi-year lease of the domain name of their choice as well as opportunities to promote their brand during promotional events.

2) Sunrise period
During the Sunrise period, expected to last around 3 months, a major communications campaign will be run to draw attention to the launch of the .corsica TLD. During this period, owners of recognized brand names will be invited to pre-book their domain name or request that it is put on a ‘not for sale’ list of names. The Sunrise period will be implemented in light of ICANN best practices and, in particular, the recommendations of ICANN’s Intellectual Property Constituency ‘The Perfect Sunrise: How pre-launch Rights Protection Mechanisms and successful registry operations go hand in hand.’ The protection of Trademark owners rights during the Sunrise Period will be duly respected. The authenticity of demands for Trademark names will be verified by means of ICANN’s Trademark Clearing House. The .corsica registry will also have recourse to ICANN’s Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS) in cases where it appears there has been a deliberate infringement against a trademark.

During the Sunrise period Pre-registrants will need to prove that they either the right to the commercial name applied for, or that they are registered with a recognized government or industry authority. The costs for pre-booking or domain name or putting a domain name on a not-for-sale list will be determined during the .charter. Prices will be in the range of 50 to 100 euros for pre booking a name and 75 euros for putting a name on a not-for-sale list.

3) Landrush period
The Landrush period, also expected to last around 3 months, will be open to all registrants, and the basic rule for the attribution of a domain name will be ‘first come first served’. During the Landrush period, the retail price for a domain name is expected to be approximately three times the eventual price, i.e. 45 to 55 euros.

4) General Availability
With the general launch of the .corsica TLD, registrar prices for domain names will be brought down to around to around 22 euros per domain name. Registrants that meet the eligibility criteria will be able to purchase domain names on a first come first served basis.

.Corsica Users Charter

The .corsica TLD Users Charter will draw on certain aspects of AFNIC’s own Charter (Charte de Nommage: Regles d’enregistrement des noms de domaines).

In summary:

1) There will be syntactic limitations with a ban on names that:
- are composed of one or two characters
- include accented letters
- start or end with a hyphen
- contain more than 255 letters

2) The principle of ‘first come first served’ will be observed.

With the exception of a pre-established and publicly available list of domain names that are banned or reserved the principle of ‘first come first served’ will be observed, i.e. the chronological order in which requests are received will be respected.

3) List of names requiring special approval: The .corsica registry will prepare a list of names which will require a more detailed assessment before they are registered. This list will include the names of the 360 villages across Corsica. For these types of names the registrar will need to obtain specified documents which attest to the applicant’s true identity and legitimacy.

4) List of banned names: The .corsica registry will also have a list of banned names due to their offensive nature e.g. ‘nazi’, ‘killer’, ‘pornography’,...

5) Domain names under the .corsica TLD will be held for fixed 12-month durations in accordance with the terms of reference of the naming policy.

6) The price of domain names will include setting up costs, annual maintenance and costs requiring the involvement of the registry.

7) Eligibility: the .corsica TLD will be available to individuals and corporate entities regardless of their geographic location.

8) Reachability: There will be a strict requirement for the owners of domain names to be reachable by phone or email.

v. Measures for protecting the privacy or confidential information of registrants or users

The protection of confidential information submitted by registrants and users, aside from any information that can be accessed via the ‘Whois’ database, will be rigorously enforced. All personal information received in the course of registering domain names will be stored in secure databases and never communicated to third parties. The only exceptions to this protection concern requests for information that may come from the French judicial system or certain state authorities, e.g. the fiscal authorities, customs office etc..

Personal data

The treatment of all personal data in relation to the registration is subject to French legislation (Loi 78-17 of 6th January 1978) pertaining to the freedom of information. Registrars contracted to commercialise the .corsica TLD will be required to adhere to the prescriptions of this law. Duly identified owners of domain names will have the right to access all the information concerning them which may be held by the .corsica registry, AFNIC or a domain name registry, as the case may be.

Whois Data

Whois data including the information that will be required as a matter of course to identify individuals or corporate entities that have registered domain names under the .corsica TLD will be maintained by AFNIC. This service will be provided in compliance with the obligation listed in specification 4 of the registry contracts.

Outreach and communications

A multi-pronged outreach and communications campaign will be run to coincide with the delegation and launch of the .corsica TLD. This campaign will be designed and run by a third party operator to be selected following a public call for tender.

This campaign will include:

- Targeted correspondence and the organisation of meetings with the representatives of the villages of Corsica, all of whom will be given priority regarding the registration of their place name.
- Targeted correspondence and organisation of meetings with the main ICANN-Accredited Domain Name Registrars operating in France.
- Participation in Internet governance fora, notably ICANN and CENTR meetings.
- Targeted correspondence and the organisation of meetings with the representatives and business owners of the main economic sectors (tourism, wine, gastronomy).
- Setting up of a comprehensive website regarding the .corsica TLD as well as a Facebook page and Twitter account.
- Production and distribution during Internet governance meetings and other selected events of promotional merchandising products including fliers, badges, pens, mugs etc..

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