18(c) What operating rules will you adopt to eliminate or minimize social costs?

Prototypical answer:

During Sunrise and Landrush periods, multiple applications, by qualified applicants, for a particular domain name will be resolved by an auction process. Once .store TLD enters general availability, multiple applications for a particular domain name will be on a first-come⁄first-serve basis.

To encourage adoption, Dot Store Group LLC (DSG) anticipates a two-step process:

* First, DSG will ensure the availability of an ICANN and .Store accredited registrar channel. The registrar channel will be set-up to properly market, sell and support .store domains. This will require co-op marketing and promotional funds, as well as support and collateral to defray the cost of ramp-up, marketing, and registrant acquisition and support.

* Second, to entice registrants to purchase and adopt .store domains, DSG will provide promotional incentives for the registrars to pass on to the targeted registrants. The incentives will include a mix of bulk registration discounts and promotional pricing. The incentives will encourage upselling of their existing base of registrants by offering promotional pricing for the bundled sale of a .store domain along with customary e-commerce type of services.

.Storeʹs registration policy offers all registrants the option of one to ten year registrations.

DSG intends to have a first year introductory price as well as a 5-year and 10-year subscription discount. DSG intends to implement bulk registration discounts for targeted registrants (e.g. promotional incentives for multiple registrations by the same registrant, and⁄or promotional incentives for multiple year registrations for a specific .store domain name).

DSG will abide by the Registry Agreement. If there is a need for a price increase, DSG will notify ICANN, and then the registrar channel in writing. Dot Store Group LLC plans to price .store as a themed-based gTLD and therefore, the price will be higher than the average com⁄net gTLD. At this time, based on initial pricing, a price escalation is not in our plans. Further, we see no future event that would cause us to raise the price of .store registrations above the initial pricing. As in any business venture, we can not predict the future with complete certainty. Therefore, DSG reserves the right to escalate prices if the need arises. During the pre-launch period, Dot Store Group LLC will seek advice from our industry consultants to prepare the Registrant contract to all registrants. The contractual commitment regarding the magnitude of price escalation will be part of that contract. We would like to stress strongly that we have no intention of raising prices above the initial price point.




1 http:⁄⁄verisigninc.com⁄en_US⁄why-verisign⁄research-trends⁄domain-name-industry-brief⁄index.xhtml
2 http:⁄⁄news.blogs.cnn.com⁄2010⁄03⁄15⁄dot-com-marks-25th-anniversary⁄
3 http:⁄⁄web.archive.org⁄web⁄20081202081617⁄http:⁄⁄tools.ietf.org⁄html⁄rfc1591

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