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

gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.世界Stable Tone Limitedrodenbaugh.comView
(b) How do you expect that your proposed gTLD will benefit registrants, Internet users, and others? Answers should address the following points:
i. What is the goal of your proposed gTLD in terms of areas of specialty, service levels, or reputation?
ii. What do you anticipate your proposed gTLD will add to the current space, in terms of competition, differentiation, or innovation?
iii. What goals does your proposed gTLD have in terms of user experience?
iv. Provide a complete description of the applicant’s intended registration policies in support of the goals listed above.
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.
vi. Describe whether and in what ways outreach and communications will help to achieve your projected benefits.

The .世界TLD is intended to benefit Chinese-speaking internet users by enabling individuals, entities and businesses to have access to a Chinese language TLD and domain name so they can communicate more easily and effectively with one another as well as with all Chinese language Internet users. Chinese speaking Internet users will benefit from a more distinctive and trustworthy internet experience in dealing with .世界 domain registrants and users.

(i) What is the goal of your proposed gTLD in terms of areas of specialty, service levels, or reputation?

The Company intends to provide a distinctive and common-sense TLD for Chinese-speaking individuals, corporations and other entities and businesses to communicate and provide information, content and commerce to one another. One fifth of the world’s population speaks Chinese, yet there are no existing gTLDs in Chinese language other than ASCII TLD, which offer a hybrid solution (i.e. ASCII.IDN). Individuals, corporations, entities and businesses inside and outside of China will be well served with a Chinese language .世界TLD which would be more targeted than a .com address and less restrictive than comparable ccTLD options. The Company seeks to make .世界 domain names familiar to Chinese-speaking individuals, corporations and other entities and businesses as having almost entirely Chinese language content, and thus valuable to companies and persons desiring to provide information, goods and services to Chinese speaking Internet users. The current restrictions on the availability of domain names make it difficult and complicated to establish a presence online, as evidenced by the paltry number of domain names and websites when compared to Chinese Internet users. The company hopes the campaign to introduce the .世界TLD will also lead to domain name growth and a greater choice of content and intuitive in¬-language domain names for the average Internet user.

In order to achieve this goal, the Company intends to ensure the .世界TLD is a trusted and secure domain space. The Company has chosen Neustar as its back-end registry services provider, with the expectation that Neustar will deliver world class service to the Company and to all .世界 domain registrants and users. The Company also intends to implement an Acceptable Use Policy designed to set and maintain expectations with the registrants to ensure the namespace maintains its focus on quality content.


(ii) What do you anticipate your proposed gTLD will add to the current space, in terms of competition, differentiation, or innovation?

The TLD will provide an alternative to the current ASCII or hybrid TLDs, catering specifically to the Chinese-language population of the world. The TLD will serve as a differentiation force, as a distinctive name space that simplifies users’ choice to interact with people, entities and businesses that wish to communicate in the Chinese language.

The Company expects that many users will directly navigate to intuitive .世界domains and subdomains, saving time and resources from first accessing a search engine.

The registration and use of domains within the .世界TLD will provide stark differentiation from existing non-Chinese language domains. Today, it is often difficult to find any relevant and easily available second level domain name from existing gTLD and ccTLD registries. This is also true of the Chinese language IDNs at the second level, where there has been a great deal of speculation by domain investors. The .世界TLD will allow people and entities with an interest in communicating in Chinese language to innovate, and to create many uses for domain names which, with today’s restrictions on the availability of domain names, are too complicated.

(iii) What goals does your proposed gTLD have in terms of user experience?

The .世界TLD (.shijie) is supported by leading-edge technologies such as DNSSEC, and internationalized Whois, not to mention a reliable and scalable registration and resolution infrastructure provided by Neustar. In addition, policies such as the Acceptable Use Policy ensure a curated, trustworthy and positive user experience. The Company will promote the .世界TLD (.shijie) to encourage Chinese-speaking Internet users to become aware of the .世界TLD (.shijie) and to then prefer to interact online with other Chinese language Internet users employing and preferring this TLD above all others.

More specifically, the Company intends for users to perceive the TLD as a trustworthy indicator of the source of online information, goods and services relevant to Chinese language speakers. The Company intends to provide a safe and legitimate Internet space, enhancing user experience by mitigating security-associated risks, as further described in response to Questions 26, 28 and 29.

In addition, the .世界TLD (.shijie) will provide an easily recognizable, and navigable and predictable domain name space. For example, there will be secondary domain names in Simplified Chinese characters such as geographicnames.世界for localized websites, and product.世界for websites targeting the Chinese language user. All of this will lessen users’ confusion when interacting online.


(iv) Provide a complete description of the applicant’s intended registration policies in support of the goals listed above.

The .世界 TLD will be open and unrestricted, allowing anyone to select an appropriate .世界 domain name for their own legitimate purposes.

Reserved Names:

However, the Company recognizes both the ICANN requirement and domain industry practice of reserving (preventing) the registrations of selected strings and intends to comply pursuant to the following Reserved Names and Dispute Resolution Mechanism policies.

In .世界TLD (.shijie) the Company will reserve the following classes of domain names, which will not be available to register via the Sunrise or subsequent periods:

- The reserved names required in Specification 5 of the new gTLD Registry Agreement.

- The geographic names required in Specification 5 of the new gTLD Registry Agreement, and as described in Question 21 and Question 22 (“Protection of Geographic Names”).

- The registry operator will reserve its own name and variations thereof, and registry operations names (such as nic.世界, and registry.世界, etc. These may be reserved in both Simplified Chinese script and in English (ASCII). This has been a standard practice in ICANN’s past gTLDs.

- The Company will also reserve names related to ICANN and Internet standards bodies (ex: iana.世界, etc.).

The Company also does intend to set aside some generic names in both Chinese IDN and English (ASCII) second level. However, to be conservative, the Company has kept any financial projections related to Premium Names to zero.

Dispute Resolution Mechanisms:
Trademark rights holders will have access to several dispute mechanisms. These are fair and transparent processes to adjudicate claims to domain names, such as:

- The Company will operate a Sunrise Dispute Policy to provide special protection of qualified trademark rights. Additional details on this process can be found in Question 29.

- The ICANN required Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) will apply to .世界TLD (.shijie). Please note details in question 29.

- .世界TLD (.shijie) domains will also be subject to the Universal Rapid Suspension (URS) policy. We detail our implementation of the URS in question 29.

- The Company will also comply with ICANN’s Registrar Transfer Dispute Resolutions Policy (http:⁄⁄www.icann.org⁄en⁄transfers⁄dispute-policy-12jul04.htm). Our technical and operational services are designed to support this dispute mechanism.

Regular Sunrise Period Use of Trademark Claims Services System:

The Company will initiate a Sunrise period of 30 days to allow trademark rights holders to obtain their desired names. However since the .世界TLD (.shijie) will be introduced amidst great competition from both ASCII and IDN TLDs, the Sunrise volumes expected are modest. Company will also use the Trademark Clearing House services for the duration of Sunrise and will comply with all ICANN related policies.

Other:

The Company will also employ Abuse mitigation and detection technologies and policies to mitigate abusive and fraudulent uses of .世界TLD (.shijie). The Company will also implement an Acceptable Use Policy as further described in response to Question 28. Please see additional detail in responses Questions 26, 28 and 29.

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.

The Company intends for users to perceive the TLD as a trustworthy indicator of the source of online information, products and services. User trust is enhanced when users are confident that their private or confidential information is securely protected. The Company intends to provide a safe and legitimate Internet space, enhancing user experience by mitigating security-associated risks. With respect to WHOIS data, The Company intends to comply with ICANN policies and otherwise to ensure that complete and accurate WHOIS information is readily accessible for every .世界TLD (.shijie) domain name.

The Company intends to deploy DNSSEC and to comply with all of the other policies and practices required by ICANN in the Registry Agreement and⁄or via any Consensus Policy. And of course, The Company complies with all applicable laws and regulations relating to Internet security and the privacy of users’ confidential information. Furthermore, The Company already employs commercially reasonable practices with respect to the security of online transactions and users’ private or confidential information.

The Company reserves the right to manually verify the WHOIS information of every applicant for any domain name, at any time in its discretion.


(v) Describe whether and in what ways outreach and communications will help to achieve your projected benefits.

Use of domains in the .世界TLD (.shijie) will effectively outreach and communicate to the intended audience the availability of the TLD, not only for the specific purpose at hand but also for more general or intuitive purposes. For example, a user who first sees an advertisement for product name.世界may later directly navigate to company.世界 to search for other products of the producer. Besides the Company’s own specific efforts to communicate the new TLD to its intended audience, the Company expects that audience and relevant media to further communicate the TLD as they communicate about the Company, the TLD, and the many domain names, websites and services located at a.世界 address. As one of the first Chinese-language IDN gTLDs, the Company expects a substantial degree of publicity and word-of-mouth marketing within the Chinese-speaking community.

In sum, outreach and communication are important in order to achieve the projected benefits of the TLD, but also will be inherent via use of the TLD, and further will be enhanced by the viral nature of communications about the TLD and individuals and entities who use .世界 domains. As it seems there will be many other new gTLDs presented to internet users, including a number of other Chinese-language IDN gTLDs, it is expected that the outreach, communications and media relating to each of them, individually, will lead to collective benefit insofar as many internet users will quickly grasp the concept behind these TLDs, and will expect many companies to operate them in generally consistent ways.
gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.playStar Registry 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 .play 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 .play 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 .play will provide significant competition for existing and forthcoming gTLDs. The .play 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 .play 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.

.play 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.
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