Back

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

gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.BLOGPRIMER NIVEL S.A.mi.com.coView
Benefit to registrants: The .BLOG extension will benefit registrants by being a choice to establish blogs with a stateful and meaningful domain name. Right now, domain names with a strong brandable name are scarce and it is hard to find a domain name that meaningfully states the subject of a blog under a generic, global extension. Furthermore, blog application providers generally offer subdomains of a domain of their own as addresses to the blogs. Those addresses are definitely not the best way to address a blog and do not state the nature of the site in the name. With .BLOG, registrants will be able to determine their online presence outside the given subdomains, but still expressing their nature through their web address.

Benefit to Internet users: Internet users will benefit from the extension because domains under the extension will have a clear indication of the content of the site located at a .BLOG addresses. Also, the existence of the extension will promote the creation of strong brandable blogs that will increase the number of blogs on a particular subject, therefore increasing Internet usersʹ options.

Benefit to the market as a whole: Right now, more than one half of the domain names in the world are under two extensions, both operated by the same company. The Internet as a whole needs to encourage and promote competition in a way that market rules apply to the domain extension market. The existence of .BLOG may be part of this process of enhancing competition. This in the long run benefits all the Internet consumers as products have to compete by offering better specifications and consumer services. Furthermore, being a company from Latinamerica, the extension will help strengthen ICANN´s mission to promote a really global independent Internet.

Specialty: The extension will specialize in providing names to blogs for both individuals and companies worldwide. The extension is not intended for sites that are not blogs or that are not related to the blogging activity but will also not have issues if such situation were to arise. This will encourage specialization of sites under the extension as places full of user generated rich and interactive content.

Service Levels: Regarding service levels, this issue may be split into three sections that imply the Registry directly:

Technical service level at the Registry level regarding the avilability of DNS for the domains under the .BLOG extension: This subject will be discussed in the technical section. Basically, we have contracted with a specialized Registry services provider whose expertise and technical background guarantee the highest availability and stability of the DNS services for the domains under the .BLOG extension.

Technical service level at the Registry level regarding the availability of the registration interface to the Registrars: As with the previous question, this will be discussed in the technical section. Availability of the interface to Registrars will rely on our technical services provider.

Support service level at the Registry level to act upon support requests made by Registrars: As has been agreed with our technical services provider, support will be provided by a qualified and competent team. Support will be provided via phone and email for Registrars and will be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Reputation: We will strive on achieving a reputation of a responsible stable space where free speech is present. We will have stability and availability of our service as our pilar. Over this we will promote freedom of speech by incentivizing the creation of sites that promote access and publishing of information on every topic.

The extension will add to the current namespace a specialized innovative way to brand and name blogs. Right now blogs have no natural location but are spread all over the Internet on different domain names. This gives the extension a great possibility to become the de facto choice to name blogs. For Internet users, the extension will be a name that expresses the contents to be found in the site. The extension will allow users to know what to expect when they visit a .BLOG extension. Regarding competition, right now there are not many memorable and brandable domain names available for people starting their blogs. The extension will give Internet bloggers a huge space in which to establish great names for their blogs.

Regarding user experience, at a registrar level the .BLOG TLD will be registered using the existing distribution channels. We will have an outstanding support for our registrars and will consistently promote user adoption with Above The Line strategies. As for the Internet User experience, .BLOG will work strongly on achieving a reputation of being the home of content generated by independent individuals. .BLOG will constantly work to get sites under the extension to express their spirit and nature. With this, when users go to .BLOG websites they will know what not and what to expect.

The achievement of the goals stated above requires that we do not incorporate a complex policy framework. We need to manage policy in a way that makes user adoption easy and straightforward. The .BLOG Registry will be an open space in which one of our main goals is to facilitate as much as possible the registration of domain names. Below is a draft on the policy on domain registrations under the .BLOG extension.

Policy draft

Introduction: The policy below is an initial approach to the policies that will rule over .BLOG domain registrations. The policy includes:

- Gradual Offering Plan
- Geographic String Protection (Details addressed in question 22)
- General policy considerations
- General Availability policies

Gradual Offering plan:

The Gradual Offering Plan seeks to fairly distribute domain names to registrants, protecting intellectual and industrial property, and assigning second level .BLOG domains in a fair and orderly manner. The Gradual Offering Plan ends when the
domains are finally available for public registration.

Objectives:

There are two main objectives sought with the Gradual Offering Plan. 1) to protect trademark rights and intellectual⁄industrial property to prevent⁄avoid abuse and bad faith in domain regsitrations. 2) to allow a phase of registration where domains are not registered in a first come, first serve basis for special commercial and other interests.

Structure: The plan is divided into two phases. The Sunrise phase and the Landrush phase. Both phases will be detailed next.

Sunrise: The Sunrise phase will allow companies with Trademarks to apply for the domains at the second level that match the protected strings according to the Trademark record.

Timeframe:

The Sunrise phase will begin 90 days after the execution of the Registry Agreement with ICANN and will last for 45 days. Both opening and closing of the phase will be done at 00:00:00 UTC.

Applicable strings (Strings that may be delegated in the second level in this phase):

Only trademarks registered before the 31st of December of 2011, and in full force at the time of the request may apply for the Sunrise phase.

- The exact equivalent of a textual trademark.
- The exact textual portion of a trademark that has textual portion and an image.

Explanatory textual terms about the trademark or the trademark registration: LLC, LTD, S.A., TM, INC, etc. may be removed from the requested domain, if and only if the text is for explanation purposes.

In the case of URLs, TLDS may be removed from the domain requested like .COM, .NET. ORG, .CO, etc. WWW may also be removed from the requested domain.

Characters like spaces and: . , ! : ? ! ” # $ % & ⁄ ( ) - _ etc. may be transcribed (f.e. & for AND or Y) removed from the requested domain.

If the trademark includes letters like “á”, “é”, “í”, “ó”, “ú”, “ü” “ñ”, these may be replaced for corresponding letters like “a”, “e”, “i”, “o”, “u”, or “n”, or the conventionally accepted characters.

No other changes may be made to the domains requested.

Contention:

If two requests are received for the same domain, these requests will go to auction. Auctions will be conducted as detailed later. Every valid request on the Sunrise phase will be temporarily reserved by the Registry until the outcome of the registration is defined.

Special Considerations

- All Sunrise requests must be done through ICANN Accredited Registrars.
- Proxy Registrations may not be used in the Sunrise phase. Registrations may change their records to Proxy records after the extension is released to General Availability.
- Both Trademarks that are registered in the Trademark Clearinghouse, and Trademarks that are not registered in the Clearinghouse may apply for the phase.
- The Registry may reject, delete, revoke, suspend, cancel or transfer a domain according to the rules of the Registry-Registrar Agreement that will stand between the Registry and all the Accredited Registrars for any domain registration to be submitted and maintained.
- Sunrise registrations may only be done for 1 year. Subsequently after General Availability applicants may renew the domain as allowed by this policies.

Landrush: The Landrush will applicants with commercial or specific interest to apply for a domain name. This also includes trademark holders that for some reason may have not applied for the Sunrise phase.

Timeframe:

The Landrush phase will begin 20 days after the end of the Sunrise phase and will last for 45 days. Both opening and closing of the phase will be done at 00:00:00 UTC.

Any valid domain that has not been reserved or requested in the Sunrise phase may be requested in the Landrush phase.

Contention:

If two requests are received for the same domain, these requests will go to auction. Auctions will be conducted as detailed later. Every valid request on the Landrush phase will be temporarily reserved by the Registry until the outcome of the registration is defined.

Special Considerations

- All Landrush requests must be done through ICANN Accredited Registrars.
- Proxy Registrations may not be used in the Landrush phase. Registrations may change their records to Proxy records after the extension is released to General Availability.
- The Registry may reject, delete, revoke, suspend, cancel or transfer a domain according to the rules of the Registry-Registrar Agreement that will stand between the Registry and all the Accredited Registrars for any domain registration to be submitted and maintained.
- Landrush registrations may only be done for 1 year. Subsequently after General Availability applicants may renew the domain as allowed by these policies.

General Availability policies

General Availability will allow registrants to register a domain name on a first come first serve basis. This phase will be the regular operation of the registrations under the extension.

Timeframe:

The General Availability phase will begin 20 days after the end of the Landrush phase and will be indefinite. Opening of General Availability phase will be done at 00:00:00 UTC.

Any valid domain that has not been reserved or requested in the Sunrise, Landrush or GPP phase may be requested in General Availability.

Trademark claims service:

Registry will implement the Trademark Claims service as detailed and instructed by ICANN for the first 60 days of operation of the Registry.

Special Considerations

- All requests must be done through ICANN Accredited Registrars.
- Proxy Registrations may be used in General Availability.
- The Registry may reject, delete, revoke, suspend, cancel or transfer a domain according to the rules of the Registry-Registrar Agreement that will stand between the Registry and all the Accredited Registrars for any domain registration to be submitted and maintained.
- General Availability registrations may only be done for up to 10 years.
- Any domain active in the General Availability phase may be renewed so that the Registration is due for 10 years from the actual date.
- Domains may only be renewed for a period of 1 year.

IDN implementation:

Chinese IDN domain names are supported from the first day of General Availability. IDNs for other character sets as Arabic, Spanish, Russian, etc. will be implemented over time if there is a demand for such names. IDN implementation will follow all of ICANN´s guidelines.

Auction rules:

When contention occurs in any initial phase of the launch of the domains under the extension an auction will apply between qualified applicants. All the auctions will take place at the same time. The Registry has considered both the possibility of running the auctions internally or outsourcing the auction process.

The following considerations have been initially drafted:

Timeframes:

- Auctions will be held for a period of 60 days with every auction lasting 5 days or 120 hours.
- Batching of the auctions will be done by alphabetical order.

System:

- The auctions will be conducted through an online bidding system.
- Applicants must agree to the terms and conditions of the online bidding system. If the applicant does not agree to the terms and conditions the auction will still take place and the winner of the auction will be assigned the domain name. The Registry, the auction provider if any, the registrar and any other related party will not be liable in the case an applicant fails to use the auction system.

Bidding:

- Bidding will start at 1 dollar and will have increments as implemented in the auction system.
- Proxy bidding will by allowed in the auction system.
- Extensions will also be done in case bidding is active at the final periods of the auction.

Payment:

Applicants will be required to pay within 30 days of the end of the auction. Notices of the payment will be sent every 5 days to the applicant. If payment is not received by the term provided, the domain will be reauctioned between the other applicants 45 days after the initial auction ended. This process will repeat until a successful payment is received. If only 2 applicants are participating in the auction and one defaults in payment, the domain will be awarded to the other applicant free of fees.

Allocation:

The winner of the auction must choose an accredited registrar to register and maintain the domain name after the auction results.

General policy considerations

Technical and Syntax requirements

- Domains consist exclusively of the letters A-Z, numbers 0-9, and hyphens.
- Domains cannot begin or end with a hyphen (-)
- Domains can´t have a hyphen in the 3rd and 4th position.
- Domains can´t exceed 63 characters excluding the TLD.
- Only domains with 3 or more characters may be registered through accredited Registrars.

Reserved domain names:

- Registry will reserve all the names as instructed by ICANN in Specification 5 of the Registry agreement and any changes that may occur in the future.
- The Registry reserves the right to reserve domain names for its personal use or mere ownership at any time. The Registry will allocate or register such names as allowed by ICANN provided that Registry Operator may reserve names from registration pursuant to Section 2.6 of the Registry Agreement. The reservation of the domain names will be inline with section B of Specification 9 of the Registry Agreement.
(Note: It is important to note that part of the Registry´s marketing activities will be to develop and promote sites under the .BLOG extension. These sites will be reserved and will be used by the registry in the process of marketing the extension)
- Release of reservations: Registry will undertake discussions with ICANN and the GAC relating the release of names reserved according to Section 5, Specification 5 of the Registry Agreement.
- 1 and 2 character domains will be reserved by the Registry as allowed by ICANN policies.

Compliance:

- Registry will implement and hold related parties responsible for the implementations of policies required by ICANN, including UDRP, URS, and any other policy that were to be determined by ICANN. Please note that RRDRP does not apply in this case as the TLD is not a community based TLD.

Privacy Policy:

A Privacy Policy will be developed regarding the access, destination and usage of all the external information at the Registry. The objective of the Privacy Policy is to allow the Registry to use the information to successfully develop the extension while maintaining companies and individuals safe from any unwanted usage of private information.

Specific information about the collection, destination and usage of private information will be publicly posted. The privacy policy will be inline with the best practices of privacy standards and ICANN recommendations about the matter.
Protection of private information from Registrants:

- Privacy registration or Proxy registrations are allowed after the domains are available to the general public. This allowance will comply to ICANN´s resolutions about WHOIS information and any other related determination made about the privacy of registrant information.

- Our privacy policy will be clear on the possible usage, destination and collection of data from Registrants. This policy will be strictly implemented and followed as part of our commitment of maintaining a reliable trustworthy extension.

Protection of information from all other stakeholders will be done through an internal policy framework in which usage and access to information will be strictly controlled. The best practices regarding transmission and storage of information will be implemented to guarantee the security of information available to the Registry.

Outreach and communications will help achieve our projected benefits. Outreach and communications will help achieve our goals because:

- By marketing and communications we will achieve the awareness we use about the existence of the extension.
- Communications and marketing will communicate the ideas behind the extension. The place for responsible freedom of speech and access to information
- Communications will also allow us to communicate the existence of the .BLOG, and therefore will inform the general public of the availability of options that increase competition.
- Part of the communications and outreach will be the implementation of blogs that will allow access to information in a responsible and free manner.

For the points outlined above, our outreach and communications strategy will support and contribute to achieve our goals.

gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.basketballdot Basketball 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 .basketball 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 .basketball 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 .basketball will provide significant competition for existing and forthcoming gTLDs. The .basketball 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 .basketball 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.

.basketball 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.
-end-