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

gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.tuiTUI AGthomsentrampedach.comView
TUI AG is currently Europe’s leading travel group, with over 30 million customers trusting the company with their holiday and travel planning needs each year. TUI is committed to providing specialty travel experiences to clients around the globe, whether their intended destinations are exotic locales or relaxing retreats near to home. TUI posted a 2010⁄2011 turnover of over EUR 17.5 billion, with underlying operating earnings of over EUR 600 million, and the company is proud to boast a network of roughly 73,700 employees.

TUI’s predecessor, the Preussag company, was founded as a coal-mining interest in 1924, and later became an important player in German industry. In 1997, Preussag acquired Hapag Lloyd AG, one of Germany’s greatest transport and travel companies, with a large selection of aircraft, cruise ships, and travel agencies. Realizing the opportunities available in this new market sector, the company sold most of its non-travel-related assets, and began dedicating itself to the provision of outstanding travel planning services. In 2002, the company officially adopted the TUI AG name, and since that time has continued to build its world-class reputation.

The company has used its TUI trade name in commerce since the 1970s, and also began registering trademarks for the name at the same time. Now TUI AG is the registered owner of numerous TUI trademarks worldwide.


A. TUI’s Business Sectors

TUI is Europe’s leading travel company providing tour operators, retail shops, online portals, airlines and incoming services for over 30 million customers. The TUI company comprises three corporate divisions – TUI Travel, TUI Hotels & Resorts, and TUI Cruises. A summary of the specialty services provided by each division is outlined below.

A.1 TUI Travel

The TUI Travel division employs over 53,000 people and operates in 31 markets worldwide, providing customized vacation experiences. Packages are grouped under four main headings, in order to deliver a wide range of experiences for the company’s clients. These groups include: Mainstream, Accommodation & Destinations, Specialist & Activity and Emerging Markets.

The Mainstream sector partners with well-known affiliate brands to bring customers the recognized services they have come to know and trust. Accommodation and Destinations provides over 21.4M room-nights per year. The Specialist and Activity division provides opportunities for both education and adventure packages, as well as sports and entertainment. Finally, the Emerging Markets section brings travelers of new source markets including Russia, India, China and Brazil an opportunity to experience TUI products.

A.2 TUI Hotels and Resorts

With 249 hotels and 160,000 beds in approximately 30 countries, TUI Hotels & Resorts is the largest holiday hotelier in Europe. Combined with the division’s extensive network of booking specialists across the globe, TUI Hotels and Resorts is ready to meet the needs of the company’s multi-million client base.

A.3 TUI Cruises

TUI Cruises, with services provided by Hapag-Lloyd Kreuzfahrten GmbH and TUI Cruises GmbH, offers travel packages tailored to the needs of a wide range of clients. A number of specialty themes and events, such as golfing, family fun and music adventures, are designed around cruise packages.


B. The Mission and Purpose of the “.TUI” space

TUI intends to use the new TLD space to provide a comprehensive communications platform, serving its broad network of corporate affiliates, partners, agents, and clients. Targeted development and use of the “.TUI” space will support the company’s strategic business and marketing objectives. The space will enable brand empowerment, self-determined domain allocation, and an extension of TUI’s brand protection and control through the creation of a unique TLD architecture.

Through the “.TUI” TLD, the company will be able to showcase its vast array of services, promote its affiliates, and provide up-to-date information to its Internet visitors. The space will act as a first point of contact for many first-time visitors, who may be unfamiliar with TUI’s many offerings as well as an efficient guide for longstanding users interested in reconnecting with the company. Additionally, the TLD is intended to serve as a source of trusted information for millions of Internet users worldwide, who have come to rely on TUI’s services, standards of quality, and dependable reputation.

B.1 Structure of “.TUI”

TUI will manage the new space under a single-registrant policy, with all second-level registrations held directly by the company itself. TUI will carefully manage the selection of all domains, to ensure ease of navigation within the space. The company intends to create an intuitive, inviting domain network, where visitors can easily locate the content and services sought. Links will take customers from general information pages to specific content, and provide easy navigation to connected corporate partners’ micro-sites. Individual users may also create individual travel portals to track their voyages and share stories via social media. Besides obvious brand, brand architecture or product hierarchy given structures a part of the “.TUI” space logic develops organically out of generic search focuses of the users.

General sites, such as “hotels.TUI”, “resorts.TUI” or “honeymoon.TUI” will provide compiled information about the services offered by the company at large, with detailed descriptions and package information offered via clearly-labeled links.

It is anticipated that trusted affiliates will have the opportunity to license domain name registrations within the “.TUI” space. Under these second-level registrations, such as “affiliate.TUI”, corporate partners will have the opportunity to create “micro-sites” to advertise their services offered in connection with TUI products, and to reinforce their TUI partnership. Accordingly, clients seeking branded services offered in connection with TUI will find information about these destinations and travel packages under the appropriate, easy-to-locate “.TUI” domain.

B.2 Benefits of “.TUI”

Accordingly, TUI believes that use of the new TLD will benefit the company, its customers, and general Internet users alike. TUI anticipates increasing the amount of information and interactive customer content available on the new TUI websites. Therefore, the company believes the TLD will experience increased traffic and user interest, as potential customers and existing clients become familiar with the space. TUI plans to develop a high level of trust among Internet users, with the branded nature of the space acting as a “seal of quality” providing security and authenticity, and increasing the reputation of the TUI brand.

It is expected that TUI’s clients, affiliates and visitors will benefit from the new TLD, where they can be assured of the company’s diligent monitoring efforts and privacy protection. As the space will operate under a single-registrant model, TUI will be able to control the content displayed on “.TUI” sites and, accordingly, consumers will experience safer, more trustworthy interactions.

As mentioned above, the TLD will follow a single-registrant model, wherein all registrations within the space are held by TUI itself, and affiliated entities may apply to license “.TUI” domains. The Legal Department of TUI shall review every license request and, in its sole discretion, may approve registrations and grant licenses on a case-by-case basis. Only TUI’s affiliates will be allowed to license “.TUI” domains, and in every case the registrant of record for all domains shall be TUI. In all cases, TUI shall monitor the use of all “.TUI” domain names to ensure that the content of the associated websites remains current and appropriate to the TLD space.
gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.coolKoko Lake, 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.