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

Prototypical answer:

The Registry will adopt a number of operational rules and other measures to eliminate or minimize social costs and other negative consequences and costs imposed on consumers.

18 c i. In general the Registry has the goal to minimize social costs by implementing a Sunrise period that is aimed at delivering domain names to those parties that have an established right to those names and at preventing ‘cyber squatting’ for specified generic domain names. In order to achieve that goal, we will implement mechanisms for selling those specified generic domain names that guarantee fair, transparent and market based pricing. As the usage by The City of “.amsterdam” is a contributing factor to the overall success of the adoption of the TLD, The City will keep reserved for its own use a set of domain names that are particular to the City, its bodies and its institutions.

Domain names that are considered to be offensive, or have the potential of tarnishing the reputation of the City, will be blocked for use.

As a part of the policy the Registry will prepare a blocked list of domain names that can not be registered. On this list are names that are blocked for legal reasons or by the policies of ICANN. Examples would be 112.amsterdam (with 112 being the European standardized emergency number) and icann.amsterdam. The Registry will also prepare a list of reserved names. On this list will be names we will not distribute at all (like “sex.amsterdam”), or those that we want to distribute to the City of Amsterdam, its political system, officals, offices, institutions and other affiliated bodies or Partners. Examples would be “gemeente.amsterdam”, “ggd.amsterdam”, “pvda.amsterdam” and “klm.amsterdam”.
Overall the City will take a liberal stance on the registration of domain names, realizing that generally speaking not the domain name itself would be objectionable, but the contents of the website running on the domain name. However, as the City in this particular case clearly aims to disassociate itself from certain reputations deemed to be negative, a few domain names related to those negative reputations would be blocked.


Sunrise Period
During the sunrise period, we aim to minimize the social costs to legitimate owners of Trade Names and Trade Marks. Every request for a domain name will be evaluated and judged by an indepependant Sunrise Service Provider.

Land Rush Period
In this phase The Registry will start selling specific generic domain names that are likely to encounter a higher than average level of interest for purchase. Among those specific generic domain names are:

- named parts of the City

- activities related to the City

- communities in the City

- commercial activities in the City


The following selling mechanisms will be implemented:

- sale of single and generic domain names against a price fixed by The Registry. If multiple parties are interested in a single domain name, we will use a bid mechanism to select the registrant.

- Sale of specific domain names that are related to geographical areas of the City (like the names of streets, boroughs, areas and the likes), those of communities, whereby the following factors carry weight in selecting who will be able to acquire the domain name:

o Projected active use of the domain name

o The ability of a person, community or legal entity to claim the right to, or support for the application of that domain name, based on public criteria to be set in advance.

- Auctioning of single and generic domain names, for which no fixed price will be set in advance.

- Auction of clustered, themed generic domain names that represent a higher combined value to the prospective owner. By selling certain domain names as a cluster, we will significantly reduce the costs for the prospective owner, as he or she needs not apply for multiple domain names at the same time.


After that, the remaining domain names will be sold on first come, first serve basis.

18.c.ii
We aim to offer registrants as many cost advantages as is possible by:

- Preventing cyber squatting and therefore inflation of domain name prices by third parties

- Offering all available protection mechanisms for Trade Mark and Trade Name owners in acquiring their domain names, including the offering the tools for acquiring (at a significant discount) all domain names that include the most likely typo’s (utilizing a Typo Tool)

- having the domain names offered by as many Registrants as is possible, maximizing competition and attrative pricing for Registrants. The Registry expects in this respect to directly profit from the excellent relations SIDN already has with a large number of registrars.


18.c.iii
We will not offer domain names for any period longer than ten years. Furthermore, we do not intend to offer any contractual agreements with our Registrants regarding price increases.

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