Description of TLD Policies
bizTRAC
October 2, 2000
.biz TLD Regulatory and Advisory Council
181 Hudson Street, Suite 7c
New York, NY, 10013
(212) 274-8655
Description of TLD
Policies
PREFACE: DEFINITION
OF TERMS
Throughout this Description of TLD Policies, the following
defined terms will be used. All defined
terms will be written with initial capital letters in the main body of this
application. The main body of the application follows the definitions.
New TLD: The New
TLD string granted as a result of this application. As stated in section E2, we
are applying for “.biz”, “.firm”,
“.ebiz”, “.real”, “.inc”.
Applicant: The
company or individual wishing to Register or Reserve a New TLD name.
Application: The
process by which a company requests to Reserve or Register a name under the New
TLD.
Registration: The
process by which a name under the New TLD is registered. There are two types of
registrations: Business Name
Registrations and Product Line
Registrations (described in Sections E16.7.1 and E16.7.2).
Area of Business:
When a business applies for Registration of an SLD it is required to specify
the Area of Business (or field) in which it will be operating (see section
E.5.0.2).
.
Market Location:
When a business applies for Registration of an SLD it is required to specify
the country or countries in which it intends to operate (see section E.5.0.2).
Name Approval: The process by which the requested SLD
is approved to be registered. If an
Applicant is granted Name Approval this does not necessarily mean that they
will be granted Business Approval. Both Name Approval and Business Approval are
required before an Applicant’s Registration Application is approved.
Business Approval: The
process by which the Applicant’s business is approved to register a name under
the New TLD. If an Applicant is granted Business Approval this does not
necessarily mean that they will be granted Name Approval. Both Business
Approval and Name Approval are required before an Applicant’s Registration
Application is approved.
Eligibility Criteria:
The criteria that must be met by a business for it to achieve Business
Approval for a Company Name Registration, (detailed in section E16.7.1) or that
a product line must meet in order to be granted Business Approval for a Product
Line Registration.
Eligible Business:
A business that meets the eligibility criteria.
Eligible Product
Line: A product line that meets the eligibility criteria.
Reservation: The
process by which a business can reserve a name for future Registration
(described in section E16.14).
Company Name
Registration: The primary registration of an Eligible Business (see section
E16.7.1).
Product Line
Registration: Registration made by an Eligible Business for an SLD other
than the SLD registered under the Company Name Registration (see section
E16.7.2.).
Registration
Transfer: The process by which an SLD can be transferred by a registrant to
another business.
Registration Administrator: Staff
of the TLD Management Group, or of an organization employed by the TLD
Management Group to process Applications for Registration and to monitor sites
after Registration.
SLD Status: SLDs under the New
TLD can have a number of statuses. Some of these are visible to the world at
large, and others only to the TLD
Management Group and the Registry
Operator:
Available: The SLD is available for Registration or Reservation. This status is visible to all.
Application in Process: An
application has been accepted and the applicant has paid. This is divided into
two sub-statuses.
(1)
Pending Review when
the application has not yet been assigned for review to an employee of the TLD
Management Group.
(2)
Under Review when
the application has been assigned for review to an employee of the TLD
Management Group. These sub-states are visible to the TLD Management Group and
to the Registry Operator but not to the world at large.
See section
E16.13 for an explanation of how these statuses are assigned.
Reserved: The SLD is not available for
registration or reservation, but applicants wishing the SLD can join the
Waiting List. This is divided into two sub-statuses.
(1) Reservation in Progress when an SLD has
been reserved and the reservation period is in progress during which the
applicant has the chance to file a full application.
(2) Awaiting Waiting List Response. The
period during which an e-mail has been sent to a member of the waiting list and
they have one week to file a full application or an application for
Reservation. See explanation of Waiting List (section E16.4). These sub-states
are visible to the TLD Management Group and to the Registry Operator, but not
to the world at large.
Registered: The SLD has been registered.
Waiting List: If a name has
status Reserved or Application in Process, an applicant can join the Waiting
List for the name (see section E16.4).
Major Mark: A major trademark
meeting various objective financial and business criteria (see section E5.0.6).
Prior Name Rights:
Those individuals or entities that hold have a Major Mark, registered trademark,
or an active SLD under another TLD will be said to have Prior Name Rights for
the mark or site name in question.
Initial Name Lottery: In the
first 60 days from the launch of the New TLD, a “Name Lottery” will be held as
a way of smoothly and equitably managing any initial “rush for name” and to
protect the Intellectual Property of those with Prior Name Rights (see section
E11.2). Winning the Initial Name Lottery will not automatically grant the
rights to a requested TLD. Rather, the winner will obtain the right to have
their Application for the TLD assessed according to the policies specified in
this document.
Primary Name: The SLD requested by the Applicant (as
opposed to Substantially Similar Names).
Substantially Similar Names: Names
which are substantially similar to a Primary Name applied for by an Applicant.
The Applicant will be able to either cheaply register such names, or to prevent
them being registered by other applicants (see section E5.0.5).
Listing of Names Applied For: A
listing of SLDs in alphabetical order for which the status is “Application in
Process”. The list will allow a simple method to lodge a protest for those who
believe that their trademark rights will be infringed by the proposed SLD (see
section E5.0.4).
Accredited Registrar: A
registrar that has been approved to accept applications for the registrations
of names under the New TLD (see section E4.4).
New TLD Dispute Resolution Policy:
This will be referred to in this document as NTDRP. The NTDRP consists of a
slightly expanded version of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy to which all
registrants of names in the New TLD will be required to agree (see section E6).
TLD Management Group:
A group established by Affinity.com, as explained in the Registry Operators
Proposal and the Sponsoring Organization Proposal, which has the functions of
running the New TLD Registry in accordance with the policies in this document.
It is the purpose of the policies described in this document
to create a TLD which ensures those who register SLDs under this designation
will use them to run a “real business” on the Internet. By limiting the
availability of the New TLD in this way, we will very significantly reduce the
problem of “cyber-hoarders” for genuine Internet entrepreneurs.
We define cyber-hoarders as those that buy up Internet names
with no intention of using them for any real business purpose. Rather, they
hold the names hostage until a genuine entrepreneur that wants the name for a
legitimate business is prepared to pay the ransom – which in most cases is many
thousands of dollars. Most “.com” names,
which are a single word, a recognizable phrase in common use, or a three or
four letter acronym, have been purchased. Less than 30% point to an active web
site. In other words, the large majority have been abducted by cyber-hoarders.
This is a big problem for new Internet entrepreneurs. On the
Internet, name is everything. In many
cases, the entrepreneur has no choice but to settle for a second-best name, or
to pay off a cyber-hoarder. The New TLD designation will give the entrepreneur
an alternative.
Each application for an SLD under the New TLD will be
assessed according to various accounting and business criteria (described in
sections E16.6.1 and E16.6.2 below), and only approved if, according to these
criteria, the applicant is an Eligible Business. The entrepreneur will pay
$2,000 for an approved SLD under the New TLD. The entrepreneur can therefore
get the domain name that they want (as long as its not owned by another
Eligible Business) for a less than the price of paying off a cyber-hoarder.
We will also check all applications to ensure that they do
not attempt to infringe on a Major Mark or an existing trademark. The
procedures used for these checks are explained in section E5.0.6.
In addition, in
order to establish consumer trust in the New TLD, each domain owner will be
required to abide by a set of minimal consumer protection policies.
These initial proposed
minimum consumer protection policies are a subset of the OECD guidelines on
consumer protection (http://www.oecd.org/dsti/sti/it/consumer/CPGuidelines_final.pdf)
and the Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue's recommendations on minimum
disclosure standards for electronic commerce (http://www.tacd.org/ecommercef.html#minimum):
For the businesses
to consumer (b2c) selling of goods and services online, the domain holder will
agree to make at least the following disclosures on their site:
a. Name of the company,
b. Geographic address of the company,
c. Phone, fax and e-mail of the company,
d. Geographic targeting, length and
validity of the offer,
e. Price and currency of the purchase
including all relevant costs,
f. Terms of delivery,
g. Guarantees, warranties or other
provisions relating to after-sales service,
h.
Information on procedures for complaints,
i.
Conditions related to return, exchange, cancellation, refund policy,
j.
The privacy policy,
k.
Information on the applicable law and jurisdiction.
The domain holder
will also agree to give the consumer an opportunity to confirm the order, and to
cancel the transaction prior to the confirmation.
We are applying for the following TLD string stated in order
of preference: “.biz”, “.firm”, “.ebiz”, “.real”, “.inc”. All of the policies throughout all of our
application materials apply equally to all of these strings. Throughout this
Description of Policies, all of these strings will be referred to as the “New
TLD”.
E3. Naming Conventions
Initially, we will offer names only registered at the second
level, as in “registered-name.biz”. In
the longer term we would, however, hope to put together country sub-domains
using the existing two letter country code TLD strings as the sub-domain
designators, such as: registered-name.uk.biz
(United Kingdom), registered-name.ci.biz (Ivory Coast), registered-name.cy.biz
(Cyprus), etc. There are two reasons for this:
firstly, it will increase the number of SLDs available under the New TLD.
Secondly, as is explained in section
III, the New TLD is restricted in such a way as to aim to only allow
registration of names by “real businesses” as opposed to by cyber-hoarders and
name hoarders. Whereas, we believe the
parameters that we intend to use to make this determination are reasonable
throughout the major industrialized countries; it will probably be appropriate
to create slightly lower hurdle levels for smaller countries or for developing
countries. Determining exactly what these hurdles should be will involve a
considerable amount of research and consultation for each country. We therefore intend to phase these country
code sub-domains in gradually over time as we develop appropriate parameters.
As the .com TLD is unrestricted, registrars of .com SLDs are
able to instantly confirm registration after they have determined the
availability of the requested name.
Under the New TLD, registrants will have to submit detailed application
materials such as bank statements and proof of trademark ownership etc. These
materials will then be examined by the TLD Management Group to determine
whether the registration should be granted.
The processing of applications therefore involves the
registrar and the Registry Operator. The main responsibility of the registrar
is that of accepting applications. The Registry Operator has the responsibility
of doing all the automatic checking that is necessary (see section E16.6.1),
recording the registration and maintaining a centralized database, and the
administrative functions of carrying out all of the manual analysis and
processing of applications.
The role of registrars under this system therefore is:
(a)
Present standardized materials giving a full explanation of the
conditions for Reservation and Registration (as explained in Section III);
(b)
Perform a name check to determine whether the name is
Available;
(c)
Perform various automatic checks through interface with the Registry
Operator system to determine whether the applicant is eligible to apply for
Reservation or Registration of the requested SLDs (see sections E16.7.1 and
E16.13 );
(d)
Provide a facility whereby the Applicant can specify the
permissible number of Substantially Similar Names (see section E16.5);
(e)
If the Primary Name is Available and the Applicant is eligible
to apply, accept the Application from the Applicant for Reservation or Registration
of the Primary Name and the requested Substantially Similar Names, and accept
payment for the Application;
(f)
Submit a message to the Registry Operator, which will change
the Name Status from Available to Application in Process, sub-category Pending
Review for all requested names;
(g)
If the Primary Name has either Name Status “Reserved” or
“Application in Process”, the registrar will offer the Applicant the
opportunity to join the Waiting List and accept payment for this service (see
section E16.4);
(h)
Accept a message from the Registry when the application
process is complete, informing the registrar of the status of the Application;
(i)
As explained below, the Whois database is maintained by the
Registry and not by each individual Registrar. Each registrar is given an interface to this database and will
supply such information to their users.
It is proposed to pay registrars a $100 fee for each
Application that is accepted for Registration. If a name is Reserved, a $50 fee will be paid to the registrar. If the reservation is later converted to a
Registration at that time, the registrar will be paid an additional $50 fee.
The computational roles of registry operator under this
system is:
(a)
Provide all of the necessary interfaces to registrars to allow
them to perform the tasks listed above;
(b)
Perform instant checks of name availability and applicant
eligibility, and return the results to the registrar to allow the registrar to
perform the actions listed in E4.1(b) and E4.1(c);
(c)
Change the name Status from Available to Application in
Process, sub-category Pending Review, when the application is received from the
registrar;
(d)
Accept messages from the TLD Management Group to update the
Name Status as it is changed throughout the process of Application Review (see
section E.5.0.2);
(e)
Provide a centralized Whois service which is made available
through an interface to all accredited registrars. As the application is not instantly granted by a registrar, but
rather by the TLD Management Group after an extensive review of submitted
materials, it makes sense that the Whois database should be centralized and
therefore held by the Registry Operator as opposed to distributed among
registrars.
The administrative roles of registry operator will be
carried out by the TLD Management Group. These roles are:
(a)
To initiate the processing of application materials submitted
by the Applicant;
(b)
To interact with the Client by e-mail, by mail, and over the
telephone, to obtain such information as is necessary to process the
Application and to inform the Applicant of the progress of that Application;
(c)
To inform the Registry Operator of the status of the
Application as the process proceeds so that the Name Status is appropriately
updated;
(d)
To receive payments from applicants for Registration and other
services and to returns fees or portions of those fees where appropriate (see
Section E9).
A fuller description of the process of Registration and
Reservation of names, and the assignment of responsibilities between the
different parties is given in Section 3 of this document.
E4.4 Selection of Registrars
For a period of four months, Registration Services will be
provided by the Registry Operator and by one other registrar. We are currently in discussions with two of
the largest registrars who have both expressed a very strong interest in
providing registration services. We
will restrict the number of registrars over this first three-month period, as
this period covers the period of the Initial Name Lottery (see section E11.2),
and the first two months of regular registration operations. It will be our objective to ensure over this
period that our software and processes for receiving and processing
applications work smoothly before bringing in further registrars.
After this initial start-up period, we will aim to add one registrar
per month over the following six months. In this early stage, we will select
registrars randomly from applicants subject to a minimum registration rate of
at least 15,000 .com/.net/.org names per month over the preceding three months.
After this period, we accept registrars
on a more general basis. We will allow
only ICANN accredited registrars to apply to become a registrar for the New TLD.
In the New TLD price is an essential element of strategy
which has the function of deterring frivolous applications. In addition (see Registry Operator Proposal),
much of the cost of application will be used in processing applications to
determine whether or not the applicant is an “Eligible Business”. As a result, there will be no price
competition under the New TLD.
E5. Intellectual
Property Provisions
In this Section E5, we will first give an explanation of our
general approach, and then in the light of this summary, specifically answer
the Application form questions E5.1 – E5.6. Our explanation section will be divided into sections numbered
E5.0.1, E5.0.2, etc.
Our objective in creating policies specified herein is to
create a screening process that will prevent a significant proportion of
deliberate or unintentional inappropriate use of existing trademarks. We also seek to provide additional protection
for those with particularly well-known trademarks in the start-up period. The proposed registration process for the New
TLD will offer considerably better protection for intellectual property rights
than the current registration procedures for .com/.net/.org names, as under the
New TLD each application will be checked manually. Clearly, despite our best efforts, we will not be able to catch
all instances of intellectual property infringement at the Application stage. It is therefore our objective to ensure that
if such infringement does occur, that the injured party is able to easily seek
corrective measures.
An Application for Registration will only be approved if it
is passed for Business Approval and Name Approval. The following procedures will be used to assess applications for
Name Approval:
(a)
The Applicant will specify an Area of Business and main Market
Location. The location can be specified as a specific country or as “worldwide”;
(b)
If the Applicant business has a registered trademark for the
Area of Business and Market Location, or any portion of that location (say the
Applicant has a primary market of the E.U. and has a trademark for Germany), it
will be granted Name Approval;
(c)
If the Applicant business has no registered trademark, a basic
trademark search (see E5.0.3 below) will be conducted for the specified name in
the specified area;
(d)
If there is a clear trademark infringement Name Approval will
not be granted;
(e)
If there is not a clear Trademark infringement Name Approval
will be granted;
(f)
All Applicants will be informed that they should carry out
their own thorough trademark checks and that the basic check carried out in
processing the Application is a screening process only, and absolutely no
guarantee that their SLD will not infringe on an existing trademark or famous
name;
(g)
All Applicants will be required to agree to a slightly
modified version of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (see section E6);
(h)
At the time the Application is submitted, the requested name
will be publicly posted on a “Listing of Names Applied For” (see section E5.0.4
below) available at the Registry website or at participating registrar websites.
Those believing that their trademark
rights will be infringed by the proposed name will be able to submit a protest
to the Registration Administrator and the Applicant;
(i)
Except in cases of very clear trademark infringement, such
protests will not result in Name Approval being withheld;
(j)
If a dispute over an SLD is taken to arbitration, the complainant
will be able to obtain records of the parameters under which the application
was submitted (business area and Market Location), and any protests that were
submitted as possible evidence of bad faith on the part of the registrant.
During the Registration process, therefore, our approach
will be relatively liberal except in the case of very blatant trademark
infringement. We expect, however, that
because of the openness of our overall procedure, and because of the costs
involved in registering and in subsequent arbitration proceedings, and because
of the likelihood of such proceedings being filed in the cases of trademark
infringement, that we will deter many cases of intentional abuse of
intellectual property rights.
It should be noted that if a Name Approval is not granted,
but Business Approval is granted (see sections E16.7.1 and E16.6.1), the
applicant would be allowed to specify an alternative name for an additional
cost of $300. If both Name Approval and
Business Approval are rejected, $1,500 or the $2,000 will be refunded to the
applicant.
The following sections (E5.0.3 - E5.0.7) provide greater
detail on the process E5.0.2 (a)-(j) listed above.
As stated in 5.0.2 (b) above, when an application is
submitted, the Applicant will also be required to state the primary country in
which they expect to do business. The
Applicant may also say that it is their intention to do business worldwide.
These two elements of information (field of business and
primary market location) will be recorded and available to view in the Whois
database.
If the Applicant is able to show trademark rights for the
field of business and the primary market in which they wish to operate, Name
Approval will be granted to that applicant.
If the applicant has no trademark rights and gives a primary
Market Location for which a trademark database is available, a trademark search
will be done for that country. We
expect to be able to provide trademark searches for the major industrialized
countries. If the Applicant specified a
worldwide market, we will conduct a search for the United States and for the
E.U. The trademark search will only be
conducted for the exact name specified and not for variants of the name. If the requested name is not already
trademarked for the business field and for the Market Location, Name Approval
will be granted.
If the Applicant gives a primary Market Location for which no
trademark database is available a basic search will be conducted for the United
States and the E.U. If the Registration
Administrator sees potential overlap with one of these major markets, he/she
may ask for further evidence that the business actually exists and performs the
activities claimed. For example, if an Applicant were to request Snapple.biz to
sell auto-parts in Nepal (which, let us assume, is a country for which Snapple
beverages has no trademark), the Registration Administrator could ask for
further specific evidence such as invoices, catalogs etc and would only give
Name Approval if the Applicant was able to demonstrate to his/her satisfaction
the existence of such business activities.
We will only check the U.S. and the E.U. for applications
giving a “worldwide” market specification and perform only a basic search
because the costs of doing a broader search would become prohibitive (a
worldwide search on all possible variants of a specified name could cost over
$1,000).
In general, we will emphasize to Applicants that the
achievement of Name Approval is no guarantee that the requested SLD does not
infringe an existing trademark, and that we strongly recommend that Applicants
perform their own trademark searches. The purpose of our trademark search is
only to provide an initial screen and prevent some accidental infringements and
some of the more blatant attempts at cyber-hoarding.
When an Applicant applies for an SLD Registration or
Reservation (see sections E16.6.1 and E16.6.2), the name will be added to the
Listing of Names Applied For. The listing will be continuously updated as names
are applied for. The list will show all of the SLDs having the Name Status
“Application in Process” or Reserved. The listing will be in alphabetical
order. Listed with each name will be the proposed Area of Business and Market
Location (see section E.5.0.2 (a), and the name of the Applicant. Next to each
name will also be a link that will allow any parties that believe that their
trademark rights will be infringed to lodge a protest of up to approximately
100 words explaining their objection. The complaint will be forwarded to both
the Applicant and to the Registration Administrator who is handling their
application. Unless the protest highlights a very clear and obvious case of
trademark infringement, a Name Approval will not be withheld on the basis of a
protest. The records of the Application will however be stored with any
protests that are lodged, and this information may be used to as evidence of
bad faith in any arbitration proceedings that are instituted under the
procedures described in Section E6. The main purpose of the Listing of Names
Applied For is therefore merely to forewarn the Applicant about likely
objections to the Registration of their name and to provide a record to the
complainant that such an objection has been lodged.
The Listing of Names Applied For will ultimately be
searchable by sub-string. So that, for
example, the Coca-Cola Company will be able to search for “coke” and find
Applications for drinkacoke.biz, or ihatecoke.biz, and so on. This feature may
not be implemented in the initial phases of the New TLD.
E5.0.5 Substantially Similar Names
When an applicant Reserves or Registers a name, others will be prevented
from registering or reserving names which differ only by hyphens. For example, if dogfood.biz is registered,
then others will be prevented from registering dog-food.biz or even d-ogfood.biz. Applicants for Registration or Reservation
will also be allowed to specify up to five names which differ only by “regular
plurals” (i.e. in English adding an ‘s’), or by regular possessives. For example, in the above case an applicant
would be able to specify “dogsfood.biz” or “dogfoods.biz” as Substantially
Similar. We will employ translators to
verify Substantially Similar Names which Applicants claim to be plurals or
possessives in a foreign language. The applicant pays $25 for each Substantially
Similar name that they wish to have pointing to their web site, and $10 for
each where they just wish to prevent others from using the name.
Various ICANN working group reports have considered proposals that
Applicants should be able to buy or block off common misspellings of their
trademarked name: “trademark owner
would be eligible to register a limited number of domain name variations that
were similar or nearly identical to the registered mark” (ICANN Report of Working Group B 18 April
2000). We do not propose to allow
Applicants to specify common misspellings for a number of reasons:
(a) There
is less need to allow trademark owners to block-off variations of their name,
as each name applied for will be checked against a trademark database and the
application will be rejected if the name is an obvious violation of an existing
trademark or famous name (see section 5.0.3). For example, an Applicant would
not be allowed to register Macdonaldsburgers.biz, Fordtrucks.biz or
Snapplejuice.biz, and would have their application rejected and lose a
proportion of their application fee for trying to do so. Note that the system proposed under the New
TLD has considerable benefits, as the process of manual checking allows us to
reject names that would otherwise be very difficult to screen automatically.
(b) We
feel that under many circumstances we will not be competent to determine
whether a given misspelling is or is not taking unfair advantage of an existing
famous name. We feel that such issues are much better handled by an approved
arbitration panel, or if absolutely necessary, in the courts. For example, if a
company wished to register “Coca-Loca” (Spanish for Crazy Cola), it is not
instantly clear whether or not this infringes the rights or dilutes the trademark
of “Coca-Cola”.
(c) All
applicants will agree to a slightly modified version of the Uniform Domain Name
Dispute Resolution Policy (see section E6), and therefore will be subject to
arbitration hearings and the possible removal of their SLD if they lose
arbitration.
(d) Applicants
will be paying a $2,000 fee and going to considerable efforts to register their
name, and are therefore are less likely to register a name which they may be
likely to lose.
In summary, cost and effort involved in application, and the
likelihood that the application will be rejected or lost through arbitration
proceedings, make it less likely that Applicants will register common
misspellings of famous names. If such
names are registered, the injured party can relatively easily have the name
taken away by going to arbitration.
E5.0.6 Major Marks
We do not feel ourselves competent to determine what is or isn’t a
“famous name”. We have therefore
decided to use a set of objective criteria to define what we call “Major
Marks”. Major Marks are given priority
during the Initial Name Lottery (see section Ell.2), but at no time subsequent
to this.
Currently, the criteria by which a Major Mark are identified are the following:
The business must be able to supply a qualified auditor’s letter
attesting to at least one of the following:
(a) Annual
Sales of at least $200 Million;
(b) At
least 1500 dedicated outlets (e.g. MacDonald’s, Gap Stores, Hilton Hotels, etc)
and $100 of revenues;
(c) At
least 10,000 retail outlets that stock their product (e.g. Champion Spark
Plugs, Stanley Tools, Snapple Beverages, etc) and $100 of revenues.
These criteria may be adjusted prior to the commencement of the
Initial Name Lottery.
Our reason for giving no subsequent priority to Major Marks
after the Initial Name Lottery is because of the difficulty of implementing
such a procedure. Although we are able
to check submitted documents to determine whether an Applicant has a Major
Mark, we do not have a complete listing of such marks. It would therefore be impossible to determine
whether a given Application infringed on the trademark rights of a Major Mark. We also believe that such disputes are better
handled by arbitration proceedings than during the Application process.
E5.0.7 Disputes
All Applicants will be required to agree to the NTDRP, which is a
slightly modified version of Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (see
section E6), which will require them to submit to arbitration proceedings in
response to complaints of Intellectual Property Infringement, of improper site
transfer or of having an inactive site.
E5.1 What
measures will be taken to discourage registration of domain names that infringe
intellectual property rights?
The Application cost is $2,000. If the Application is rejected, $500 of this fee is retained. The
application is scrutinized for blatant trademark infringement (section E5.0.3),
and the requested SLD is publicly posted for possible objection. In addition, all registrants agree to submit
to arbitration proceedings under a slightly modified version of the Uniform
Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (see section E6). This makes it relatively
likely that attempts to cynically register the trademarks of others will be
rejected, or that the name will be lost through arbitration proceedings. We believe that the cost and effort involved
in application, and the likelihood that the application will be rejected or
lost through arbitration proceedings, make it less likely that Applicants will
register existing trademarks or common misspellings of famous names.
E5.2 If you are
proposing pre-screening for potentially infringing registrations, how will the
pre-screening be performed?
Screening will be carried out by Registration Administrators
through the processes described in Section 5.0.3, and by the general public
through the Listing of Names Applied For (see Section 5.0.4).
See the answers to E5.1 and E5.2.
We will require that all Registrants agree to a slightly expanded version
of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy. In this document this is called the New
TLD Dispute Resolution Policy or NTDRP. All existing provisions of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy
will remain in place. Our modifications will require registrants to submit to
arbitration proceedings “a mandatory administrative proceeding” if a
complainant asserts that the SLD is being used for an interest other than that
of the Registrant, or that the SLD is being used for the benefit of a business
that does not meet the Minimum Maintenance Criteria (section E16.9). The first
of these additional provisions will be added so as to prevent the transfer of
names without going through the Transfer Procedures described in section
E16.11. The second provision will be added to allow the complainant to
“free-up” names that are not being actively used for a business purpose.
If the complainant is successful in showing that the SLD is being used
for an interest other than that of the registrant, the registrant will be given
the opportunity to transfer the SLD under the procedures listed in Section E16.11
to the business whose interests are promoted by the site. If the requested
transfer does not meet eligibility criteria (see Section E16.11.1), the SLD
will be taken from the existing registrant and returned to the pool of
available names. If the complainant is
successful in showing that the business using the SLD does not meet the Minimum
Maintenance Requirements, the SLD will also be returned to the pool of
available names.
The exact legal language of these new provisions is as yet to be
determined.
E7. Data
Privacy, Escrow, and Whois Data
E7.1 Data
Privacy
E7.2 Data
Escrow
During the term of this Agreement, on a daily basis or on
such other schedule as ICANN may from time to time specify, the Registry
Operator shall submit to ICANN or to an independent escrow agent ICANN
designates, an electronic copy, in a format specified by ICANN, of the
database as designated by ICANN. The escrowed data shall be held by ICANN
or the escrow agent under an escrow agreement that specifies that the escrowed
data may be used only in the event that Registry accreditation agreement is
terminated or expires without renewal.
E7.3 Whois
Data
II. REGISTRATION POLICIES DURING THE START-UP PERIOD.
E11.
In general we believe the “rush for names” will be lessened
by the restrictions that the New TLD will place on cyber-hoarding (see Section III).
On the one hand, there will be no rush
of cyber-hoarders to rapidly buy up names. On the other hand, genuine entrepreneurs will feel that their
selected name is more likely to be available when they need it, and so will not
necessarily feel the need to obtain their name as soon as the TLD is launched.
In this section, we will first give an explanation of our
general approach, and then in the light of this summary, specifically answer
the application form questions E12-E15. Our explanation section is numbered as Sections E11.1 - E11.3.
We specify the "start-up" period as the first two
months during which the New TLD is available. During this period we will
implement are an initial "Name Lottery" to address the potential rush
for SLDs and to provide an additional layer of protection to existing
trademarks and Major Marks (see Section E11.2).
E11.2 The Initial
Name Lottery.
During the first two months from the launch of the New TLD,
a Name Lottery will be held. Applicants
to the lottery will be able to apply for either Name Registration (see Section E16.13.),
or for Name Reservation (see Section E16.14) for any specified SLD. By applying for an SLD during the start-up
period, an Applicant will automatically initiate a lottery for that SLD. The
application fee for the lottery the lottery will be $100 per SLD. Those applying under the lottery for Name
Reservation will only be considered if there are no applicants for Name
Reservation for that SLD. Additional
priority will be given to those with Major Marks, registered trademarks or SLDs
under other sites, as explained in Section E11.3 below. Subject to these
conditions, however, the winner of the lottery for each name will be picked at
random.
At the end of the lottery period the winners will be
informed of the decision and will be given one week to file a Reservation or a
full Registration Application (as specified previously in their lottery
application) and to pay the applicable fees. The lottery application fee will
be allowable against the full Registration application or Reservation cost.
However, this fee will not be returned if the winner does not file within the
required time. All losers will be informed of their loss and their lottery
application fees will be returned. The losers of the lottery will be placed on
the Waiting List (see Section E16.4) for the requested SLD in random order.
A win on the lottery will not be transferable to another
individual or corporate entity. In other words, the winning lottery applicant
must also be the individual or entity that files the Reservation or
Registration Application. This measure will be enacted to prevent those wishing
to obtain a name filing multiple applications through friends, family or other
companies. Winning the lottery will not guarantee the winner of being awarded
the requested SLD. It the winner files
an application for the SLD, this application will be considered in the normal
fashion as explained in Section E16.6.1.
As explained in Section E16.6.1, only businesses will be
able to file for Registration under the New TLD. Lottery applications for Registration will therefore be accepted
only from businesses and not from individuals. Status will not be verified at the time of the lottery, however
applicants will be informed at that time that if that if they are not an
"Eligible Business" in the terms defined in Section E16.6.1, that
even if they win the lottery, their application will ultimately be rejected. Similarly, individuals will be deterred from
filing for Reservation in a false name, and if they are unable to prove
identity at the time of Registration, the Application will be denied.
If the lottery winner fails to submit an application, or the application
is rejected, the first member of the Waiting List is sent an e-mail and then
has one week to file their Reservation or their full application. If the first member of the Waiting List fails
to respond in the designated time, the next member of the list is contacted,
and so on.
Note that although we use the term “lottery”, many of the lotteries will
have just one or very few applicants. The popular generic SLDs (e.g. Beauty,
Cars, Clothes, etc.) will probably have many applications. However, if a business applies for the SLD of
their own business name, in many cases they will be the only applicant.
Under the usual application procedure (see Sections E16.1 to
E16.8), protection is provided for those with Prior Name Rights. During the
start-up period, an additional layer of protection will be provided to those
with Prior Name Rights. We feel that we have no ability to truly assess what is
and what isn’t a “famous mark”. We have,
therefore, decided in the start-up period to give priority to “Major Marks”
where these are assessed using objective criteria discussed in Section E5.0.6.
Those applicants that have a Major Mark, a registered
trademark, or an active SLD in another TLD (Prior Name Rights), will be able to
specify this and claim priority over others in their application through the
start-up lottery process described above (Section E11.2). Applications in the lottery will be given
priority in the following order:
(a) Major Marks
(b) Registered Trade Marks
(c) Existing SLD under other TLD
(d) General applicants
Those wishing to take advantage of these provisions must
apply for Registration under the lottery. No priority will be given to lottery
applicants with Prior Name Rights wishing to Reserve an SLD.
If a lottery applicant claims Prior Name Rights, and this
claim is subsequently found to be false when the application is processed, the
application will be rejected and the lottery application fee in addition to
$500 of the Registration fee will be retained. The determination of Prior Name
Rights is explained in Section E5.0.6. The right to apply for the SLD then
passes to the first member of the Waiting List as described above.
E12. Addressing
“Initial Rush” of Registrants
The measures outlined in Section E11.1 above for the Name
Lottery will allow us to deal more effectively with the initial rush for names.
The TLD start-up period will be the first 60 days from the launch of the New
TLD. We believe that we will obtain
between 5,000 and 10,000 lottery applications within the lottery period. Many of these applications will probably be
for the same names. We believe that
there will be requests for registration of between 2,500 and 5,000 different
names. After the initial lottery period, we believe that we will receive
approximately 2,500 applications per quarter during the first year.
We believe that the number of requests will be at this
relatively low level as the regulations of the New TLD will effectively deter
cyber-hoarders.
Individuals and corporate entities can file as many
lottery applications as they like. Registration and Reservation limits will
however be as specified in Sections E16.6.1 and E16.6.2. If therefore an applicant wins many SLD
lotteries, they will have to choose which SLDs to apply for. The applicant will
forfeit the $100 lottery application fee for any lottery which they win, but
where they do not file an application for Registration or Reservation.
E14. Pricing Mechanisms
As explained in Section E9, the application price will be
$2,000 for a Name Registration and $500 for a Name Reservation. Name
Reservation fees will not be refundable, and $500 of the Name Registration fee
will be retained if the Registration Application is declined. We believe that this and the measures
outlined above in this section will sufficiently dampen the initial “rush for
names”. No additional pricing mechanisms
will be utilized during the start-up period.
The Initial Name Lottery (see Section E11.2) functions as
a de-facto “Sunrise Period”, as it allows those with Prior Name Rights to
obtain priority for registrations during the star-up period.
III. REGISTRATION RESTRICTIONS
E16. Registration Restrictions
In this Section III, we will first give an explanation of
our general approach, and then in the light of this summary, specifically
answer the Application form questions E17-E21. Our explanation section will be
divided into sections numbered E16.1, E16.2, etc.
As explained in Section E1, our objective in restricting
registrations to the New TLD is to ensure that those that register SLDs under
this designation will use them to run a “real business” on the Internet.
Each application for an SLD under the New TLD will be
assessed according to various accounting and business criteria (described in Sections
E16.6.1 and E16.6.2 below) and only approved if, according to these criteria,
the applicant is an Eligible Business. The entrepreneur will pay $2,000 for an
approved SLD under the New TLD. The entrepreneur can therefore get the domain
name that they want (as long as its not owned by another Eligible Business) for
a less than the price of paying off a cyber-hoarder.
We will also check all applications to ensure that they do
not attempt to infringe on a Major Mark or an existing trademark. The procedures
used for these checks are explained in Section E5.0.2.
Only Eligible Businesses will be allowed to register names
under the New TLD (see Eligibility for Registration Section E16.6.1). The
application process is described in detail in Section E16.13.
A business can only register one “Company Name”.
E16.2.2 Product Line Registration
In order to obtain a Product Line Registration, a business
must have a Company Name SLD Registration, and each product line must meet the
Product Line Registration Eligibility Criteria (Section 16.7.2). Subject to
these requirements, a company can have as many Product Line Registrations as
they wish where the selected name corresponds to a name for which they are able
to show trademark ownership. A company
can have only up to five product line registrations for which they do not have
trademark ownership.
When an entrepreneur starts a business on the Internet, one
of the prime considerations may be the availability of a suitable name. We therefore wanted to create a process which
would exclude cyber-hoarders, but would allow genuine entrepreneurs to reserve
an appropriate name for a business which is still in the idea stage.
If an Applicant is unable to meet the Eligibility Criteria,
but believes that they will shortly be able to do so, they will be able to
reserve an SLD for a period of six months at a cost of $500. The Reservation
will be renewable once, for an additional three months, for an additional $500
at the end of this period. Reservation fees will not be refundable. When a name
has been reserved, other applicants will be prevented from registering or
reserving that name, any name that differs solely by punctuation, or any name
that is designated by the Applicant (and accepted by the TLD Management Group)
to be a Substantially Similar Name (see Section E5.0.5). At any time during the application period
the Applicant can file a full application for Registration. The Applicant’s
fees will be reduced from $2,000 to $1,650 if the Reservation has not been
renewed, and to $1,300 if the Reservation has been renewed. In other words,
$350 of each Reservation fee will be allowable against the full cost of an
application. If the Registration Application is rejected, or the Reservation
period expires without a full application being made, the name(s) are returned
to the pool of available SLDs and the Applicant forfeits all reservation fees
paid.
If a Reservation is made by an individual at the time the
full application is filed, the individual must present a notarized statement of
their identity and a notarized statement signed by a senior officer of the
company (which could be themselves) showing that they own at least a 5% equity
interest, or a 5% partnership interest, in the company applying for a
Registration. Similarly, if the name Reservation is made by a company other
than that which files the full application for Registration, then at the time
the full application is filed, the reserving company must present a copy of
their articles of organization or incorporation and a notarized statement
signed by a senior officer of the registering company, confirming that the
reserving company owns at least a 5% equity interest or a 5% partnership
interest in the registering company. If
this documentation is not submitted, the Registration Application will be
cancelled and $500 of the application fee will be retained. These provisions will help to prevent
individuals or companies obtaining multiple reservations using false names, and
the Reservation of names by individuals or companies wishing to resell their
reservation rights to others. In
addition, if it is determined that a payment has been made to the individual or
company making the Reservation, for a transfer of the Reservation right, then
the Reservation will be cancelled and all fees will be retained.
In order to Reserve an SLD, the applicant will have to meet
the Criteria for Reservation Application (Section E16.6.2).
We selected a relatively high price for Reservation ($500),
and made this fee non-refundable, because we wanted to deter warehousing of
names by those that have no definite intention to use the SLD to start a
business.
If a name has status Reserved or Application in Process, an applicant can
join the Waiting List for the name. An
Applicant can join the waiting list to make a full application or to reserve a
name; however, those waiting to apply for Registration are always given
priority over those wishing to merely reserve a name. A $20 fee is charged to join the Waiting
List. If the previous holder of a
Reservation fails to submit an application, or a Registration application is
rejected, the next member of the Waiting List is sent an e-mail and has one week
to file their Reservation or their full application. If the first member of the Waiting List fails to respond in the
designated time, he/she forfeits the $20 fee and the next member of the list is
contacted, and so on.
The fee is allowable against the costs of Registration or Reservation.
The fee is refunded if the name is Registered by another Applicant. A fee is charged for joining the Waiting List
in order to prevent individuals or companies filing multiple Waiting List
entries in false names, so as to keep a particular SLD off the market.
As explained in Section E5.0.5, when an applicant Reserves or Registers a
name others will be prevented from registering or reserving names which differ
only by hyphens. Applicants for
Registration or Reservation will also be allowed to specify up to five names,
which differ only by “regular plurals” (i.e. in English adding an ‘s’) or by
regular possessives. The applicant pays $25 for each Substantially Similar name
that they wish to have pointing to their website, and $10 for each where they
just wish to prevent others from using the name.
Several automatic checks are performed when a Registration
Application or Reservation Application is submitted.
E16.6.1 Criteria for Registration Application
(1)
In order to apply for Registration, the applicant must be a
Company. No computational check is performed at this stage of the legitimacy of
the corporate entity; however, the applicant is informed that the company name
must match that on the bank statements that they will be submitting for the
assessment of their application materials. Applications for Registrations from
individuals will not be accepted.
(2)
For a Company Name Registration application to be accepted, the
company in question must have no other active Company Name Registrations.
(3)
For a Product Line Registration application to be accepted,
the company must have either have an active Company Name Registration or must
have a Company Name Registration application in process.
(4)
A company can have a total of no more than 10 applications in
process at any one time.
E16.6.2 Criteria for Reservation Application
(1)
Company Name Reservation applications can be made by companies
or individuals. Note that if a company is making a Company Name Reservations it
may be doing so either to provide a website for their own operations or with
the view to starting a new venture.
(2)
Product Line Reservations can be made only by companies that already
have a Company Name Registration.
(3)
Companies can have no more than five Product Line Reservations
active at any one time.
(4)
Companies and individuals can have no more than three Company
Name Reservations active at any one time.
(5)
If a name is already Reserved, a company or individual can
join the Waiting List for Registration or for Reservation (see Section E16.4).
The criteria defining what is an Eligible Business or an Eligible
Product Line, are at the very center of the policies for managing the New TLD. As described in the accompanying Sponsoring
Organization’s Proposal, we will hold meetings on a regular basis to review the
criteria that are used to make this determination. We will also seek input from registrants, from business
associations, and from the Internet community in general to determine how these
criteria could best be modified. Although
our current criteria will be used to apply to what are broadly considered
"developed countries", it is our intention to also develop policies
requiring lower levels of restriction to apply to enterprises in developing
economies.
In order for a Registration to be granted, a business must
have a bank account. The Bank account
must be in exactly the same name as that supplied for the business on
application. The business must be able
to demonstrate at least one of the following to be granted a
Business Name Registration:
(a)
Bank statements from the three months preceding the
application showing at least $30,000 in the account at each statement date.
(b)
Expenditures of more than $20,000 over the preceding three months,
or $40,000 over the preceding one year. In order to show this, the business should show both bank
statements and invoices from the period. A company might, for example, meet this requirement by showing its
payroll records, utility bills and rental agreement for the period.
(c) More
than $20,000 in sales over the previous year. In order to demonstrate this, the business should present copies
of sales invoices from the period.
In
addition, the requested SLD must be granted Name Approval under the procedures
explained in Section E5.0.2
We
fully understand that these criteria are not foolproof, and that someone
operating cynically could aim to capture a valuable name in the New TLD by
circumventing these restrictions. However,
each application will be thoroughly checked (see Section E16.13 below), and if
a Registration Administrator becomes suspicious that the application is
fraudulent (that is, that the Applicant is not truly a company doing business)
they will be empowered to request further evidence of business activities as
explained in Section E16.12 below.
E16.7.2 Product Line Registration Eligibility Criteria
(a)
A statement from an auditor that at least $15,000 has been
spent on development of the product line over the last three months.
(b)
More than $20,000 in sales over the preceding year. In order
to demonstrate this, the business should present copies of sales invoices from
the period.
(c)
A separate bank account for the product meeting any of the
criteria for a business registration.
In
addition, the requested SLD must be granted Name Approval under the procedures
explained in Section E5.0.2
A company applying for a Product Line Registration must also have, or be applying
for, a Company Name Registration. The Product Line Registration will not be
awarded unless the Company Name Registration is awarded.
In order to reserve an SLD, the applicant gives only their
name and the name of the company, if any, on behalf if which they are applying.
A Reservation is always approved as
long as the application is accepted (see Section xE16.6.2 - Criteria for
Reservation Application), i.e. no further checking is done. When the Registration
Application is submitted, however, as explained in Section E16.3, the identity
of the Applicant is checked and the Application is rejected if this is
different from the identity of the individual or company filing the
registration.
SLDs will have to be renewed on an annual basis. The annual
renewal fee will be $150. In order to renew an SLD under the New TLD, the
Registrant will have to have an active website. In addition, the Registrant
will file an on-line statement claiming at least one of the following renewal
criteria:
For Company Name Registrations:
(a)
A bank account with at least $20,000 at each statement over
the preceding three months.
(b)
$20,000 in expenditures over the preceding six months.
(c)
$10,000 in sales over the preceding six months.
For Product Line Registrations:
(a)
A separate bank account with at least $10,000 at each
statement over the preceding three months.
(b)
A statement from an auditor that at least $15,000 has been
spent on development of the product line over the previous six months.
(c)
More than $10,000 in sales over the preceding year. In order to demonstrate this, the business
should present copies of sales invoices from the period.
Renewal applications will be checked only in a limited
manner as described in Renewal Procedures in Section E16.17.1.
The Minimum Maintenance Criteria are the same as the Renewal
Criteria given in Section E16.9 above. If
a site fails to maintain the Minimum Maintenance Criteria, a complainant will
be able to require the registrant to submit to arbitration proceedings on the
basis that their site is inactive. The
provision allowing this action by the complainant will be included in the NTDRP
(see Section E9). If the complainant
succeeds in showing that a site is inactive through these proceedings, that
complainant will then be given the option to apply for the SLD and their
Application will be processed in the usual way as described in section E16.13.
If the complainant succeeds in showing that a site is inactive but does not
wish to apply for the SLD then that SLD will be returned to the pool of
Available names.
An SLD can only be transferred from one business to another
if the first business or product line is purchased by the second. In this case, both the selling business and
the buying business must demonstrate that they meet the criteria for SLD
transfers on the date for which transfer is requested. If Registration transfer is requested
retrospectively, both the buying and selling business must show records to
demonstrate that each met the criteria at the date of transfer. A fee of $2,000 will be charged to the
transferee for a Registration Transfer.
For either the transfer of a Company Name Registration or of
a Product line Registration, the transferring company must show that the
business transferred was active at the time of transfer. The transferring
company will therefore be required to meet the following criteria:
(a)
A company will only be permitted to transfer a Company Name
Registration if at least a 50% equity interest in the transferring company is
transferred to the Transferee.
(b)
For a Company Name Registration Transfer or for a Product Line
Registration Transfer, the transferring company must demonstrate that at the
time of transfer it met at least one of the following criteria:
(1)
Bank statements for the company or for the separate product
line from the three months preceding the application showing at least $30,000
in the account at each statement date.
(2)
Expenditures of more than $20,000 over the preceding three months
or $40,000 over the preceding one year.
(3)
More than $20,000 in sales over the previous year. In order to demonstrate this, the business
should present copies of sales invoices from the period.
The Registration Administrators are either employees of the
TLD Management Group or accounting or legal professionals that have been
contracted by the TLD Management Group to process applications. In the course of processing applications,
Registration Administrators will be in contact by e-mail, by mail, and where
necessary by telephone, with the Applicant to request the documentation to
prove the eligibility and if necessary to discuss these documents. If necessary, and with the permission of the
Applicant, the Registration Administrators may contact third parties possibly
including, but not limited to, the Applicant’s bank, suppliers, and customers in
order to verify the applicant’s status as an eligible business. All information submitted by an Applicant in
pursuit of an application will be kept completely confidential and will never
be used for any purpose other than the assessment of the Applicant’s
eligibility to obtain an SLD under the New TLD designation.
Staff employed directly by the TLD Management Group and
external organizations employed by the TLD Management Group will process
applications for Registration. These individuals will be called Registration
Administrators in this document.
(1)
Applicant wishes to apply for Registration of a name through
any Accredited Registrar.
(2)
On the Registrar’s website, the Applicant is informed of
Application Criteria and of Approval Criteria for Registration.
(3)
The specified SLD is checked automatically for availability. This
includes ensuring that the requested name does not differ only by dashes from
any name which has already been granted or reserved or from any SLD which has
been designated “Substantially Similar” to an existing Reservation or
Registration (see Section E5.0.5).
(4)
If the name is available, the applicant is automatically
checked against the Criteria for Registration Application (see Section E16.6.1).
(5) If
the applicant is eligible to apply, he/she may also specify up to five Substantially
Similar Names (see Section E5.0.5).
(6) The
Applicant uses a credit card, or other approved payment system, to pay the
required fees to the Registry Operator. This fee will be $2,000 plus fees for
Substantially Similar Names (see Section E5.0.5), less any fees applied from
the Applicant’s previous Reservation of the Name (see Section E16.6.2) or
Waiting List Fees (see Section E16.4).
(7) The
Name Status of the primary name and the Substantially Similar Names is updated
to Application in Process, subcategory Pending Review.
(8) Registration
Administrators continuously review the database to check for applications
Pending Review. A Registration
Administrator accepts the application for review, and changes the Name Status
to Under Review.
(9) The
Registration Administrator makes contact with the applicant and requests
materials necessary to show that they are an Eligible Business. If the Applicant originally held a Reservation
for the same SLD, this material will include proof of identity and proof of the
Applicant’s equity or partnership interest in the business (see Section E16.3).
In any case, the materials will include
bank statements for the past three months and invoices or bills required to
prove revenues or expenditures as specified in the Eligibility Criteria (see Section
E16.6.1).
(10) The Registration
Administrator checks the requested TLD and determines whether to grant Name
Approval under the procedures specified in Section E5.0.2. If Name Approval is rejected, the Applicant
may cease the Application process or elect to request an alternate SLD. If the Application is discontinued, $1,500 of
the fee is retained and $500 is returned. If the Applicant wished to request an alternate SLD, they will be
required to pay an additional $300 fee to continue processing the Application.
(11) The Applicant has four
weeks to submit the required materials. If the materials are not submitted within this time frame, the
Application will be cancelled and $500 or the application fee will be retained.
The remainder of the fee will be returned to the Applicant. The applicant will
be sent e-mail reminders every week informing of the time remaining to submit
materials. In addition, the Registration Administrator will make efforts to be
flexible and to allow the applicant additional time if necessary.
(12) If the Registration
Administrator does not receive sufficient proof of eligibility to accept the
application, he/she will contact the Applicant and request any further
materials that are required.
(13) The Registration
Administrator either approves or rejects the application for the Primary Name
and each of the Substantially Similar Names. A message is sent to the Applicant and to the Registry Operator
informing them of the outcome of the process.
(14) If the name(s) are
approved, the:
a. The
names are registered;
b. The
SLD Status of the Primary name and the Substantially Similar Names are updated
to Registered;
c. The
Waiting List applying to that name is deleted and sends e-mails to all on that
list. The Waiting List fees of $20 are refunded to those on the list;
d. The
Waiting Lists are deleted for any name which differs only by punctuation and
for Substantially Similar Names.
E-mails are sent to all on that list and the Waiting List fees of $20
are refunded.
(15) If the Primary name is
rejected:
a. The
Applicant is told the reason for rejection of the Application and is given one
week to request an appeal (see Section E16.1.6). If the Applicant does not appeal:
b. $1,500
of the application fee is returned to the Applicant ($500 is retained).
c. If
there is a Waiting List for the primary name or for any Substantially Similar
Names, an e-mail is sent to the first member of the list giving them one week
to submit an application for the name. The Name Status is changed to Awaiting
Waiting List Response.
d. If
there is no Waiting List, the SLD Status of all names applied for (the Primary
Name and Substantially similar Names) is returned to Available.
(16) After a short period of
time, the Registration Administrator will check to determine that the requested
names have been registered, returned to the available pool, or passed to the
next in line in the Waiting List as appropriate.
(1)
The Applicant wishes to apply for Reservation of a name
through any one of a number of Accredited Registrars.
(2)
The Applicant is informed of Reservation Application Criteria
and of Approval Criteria for Registration.
(3)
The specified SLD is checked automatically for availability. This
includes ensuring that the requested name does not differ only by dashes from
any name which has already been granted or reserved or from any SLD which has
been designated “Substantially Similar” to an existing Reservation or
Registration (see Section E5.0.5).
(4)
If the name is available, the Applicant is automatically
checked against the Criteria for Reservation Application.
(5)
If the Applicant is eligible to apply, he/she may also specify
up to five Substantially Similar Names.
(6)
This fee will be $500 less any Waiting List Fees that have
been paid (see Section E16.4).
(7)
The Name Status of the primary name and the Substantially
Similar Names is updated to Reserved, subcategory Reservation in Progress.
(8)
Registration Administrators continuously reviews the database
to check for new name Reservations. A
Registration Administrator accepts the application for review.
(9)
The Substantially Similar Names requested will be either
approved or rejected by the Registration Administrator. A message will be sent to the Registry
Operator to remove any rejected Substantially Similar Names. The Registry
Operator will then change the status of these names back to Available and a
message will be sent to the applicant informing them of the rejected names.
This will occur within a few days of the original Reservation.
(10)
The Applicant can renew their Reservation for three months at
the end of the initial six-month Reservation period for a cost of an additional
$500.
(11) At any time prior to the
end of the Reservation period, the Applicant can chose to file a full
application for Registration. If the Reservation has not been renewed, the cost
for a full application will be $1,650. If the Application has been renewed, the
cost for the Application will be $1,350 (i.e. $350 from each $500 fee is
allowable towards the cost of the application).
(12) When a full Registration
application is submitted, the status of the name(s) is updated to Application
in Process sub-category Pending Review, and the application process then
continues as from step 6 above in the Registration Processes section.
(13) Every month, before the
end of the Reservation period, the Applicant is sent an automatic reminder of
the time that remains to them to file a Registration Application.
(14) If the Reservation
period ends without a Registration application being received:
a. If
there is a Waiting List for the primary name or for any Substantially Similar
Names, an e-mail is sent to the first member of the list giving them one week
to submit an application for the name. The Name Status is changed to Awaiting
Waiting List Response. If this member of the Waiting List fails to respond
within this period, their $20 fee is forfeited and the next member of the
Waiting List is contacted, and so on.
b. If
there is no Waiting List, the Name Status of all names applied for is returned
to Available.
(1) The
Company Wishing to receive a Registration Transfer applies online by filling in
a standard form.
(2) The
Applicant uses a credit card or other approved payment system to pay the
required fees to the Registry Operator. This fee will be $2,000 plus fees for
the transfer of Substantially Similar Names (see Section E16.5).
(3) The
transfer is assigned for review to a Registration Administrator.
(4) The
Registration Administrator makes contact with the Applicant and requests
materials necessary to show that the transfer meets eligibility criteria as
listed in Sections E16.11.1 and E16.11.2.
(5) If
the Registration Administrator does not receive sufficient proof of eligibility
to accept the application, he/she will contact the Applicant and request any
further materials that are required.
(6) The
Registration Administrator either approves or rejects the Transfer Application.
If the transfer application is accepted for the Primary Name it is also
accepted for each of the Substantially Similar Names. A message is sent to the Applicant and to the
Registry Operator informing them of the outcome of the process.
(7) If
the transfer(s) are approved:
a.
The name registration(s) is/are transferred.
b.
The Whois information is automatically updated.
(8) If
the name transfer is rejected:
a. The
Applicant is told the reason for rejection of the Application and is given one
week to request an appeal (see Section E16.16). If the Applicant does not appeal then:
b. $1,500
of the application fee is returned to the Applicant ($1,000 is retained).
(9) After a short period of time, the
Registration Administrator will check to determine that the requested names
have been correctly transferred.
E16.16 Appeal Process
If a Registration Application or a Transfer Application is rejected, the
Applicant is informed of the reasons for rejection and is given one week to
request an appeal. If an appeal is
filed, the Applicant is asked to explain in writing why they believe that the
materials which they submitted constitute proof of the eligibility criteria.
The appeal is considered independently by two senior Registration
Administrators, different from the individual that first assessed the
Application. Further materials may be
requested to prove Eligibility. A final decision is given in writing by the
Registration Administrators assigned to the appeal.
If the appeal is rejected, $1,250 of the application fee is returned.
Therefore, there is an additional charge of $250 for filing and losing an
appeal, as in the case of a rejected application where no Appeal is filed,
$1,500 of the application fee is returned. This fee is levied to cover the cost
of the appeal process to the Registry Operator and also to deter frivolous appeals
whenever an Application is rejected.
If the Appeal is rejected, the Applicant will be free to further pursue
their case by applying to an approved arbitration authority. In the case that
the Applicant states their intention to pursue this option, the requested SLD
will not be registered with any other Applicant until these proceedings are
complete. If the arbitrator finds in
favor of the Applicant, the liability of the Registry Operator will be limited
to a refund of fees, a reversal of the decision instigating the action and
reasonable legal fees, but under no circumstances will include damages, lost
opportunities, punitive awards, etc.
E16.17 SLD Ongoing Enforcement of TLD Policies
Registration Administrators will visit the Registrants website six and
nine months after initial registration or after each annual renewal. If the site is inactive, or if the domain is
being used to promote the interests of a business other than the Registrant,
the following procedures will be followed:
E16.17.1 Inactive Site
If the site is inactive six months from registration or from the latest
annual renewal, the registrant will be warned by e-mail that if the site
remains inactive until renewal at the end of the year, the renewal will not be
granted. The registrant will be asked to send an e-mail to report when the site
is again active. If no such report is received, the site will be checked at
month nine, ten and eleven, and if the site is still inactive further warnings
will be sent to the registrant. If the site remains inactive for one year from
the Registration date, or from the previous renewal, the Renewal Application
request (if any) from the registrant will be denied
E16.17.2 Improperly Transferred
Site
If the site appears to be operating for the benefit of a business other
than that of the registrant, the Registrant will be contacted by a Registration
Administrator and asked for an explanation. If the domain has been transferred without going through the Registration
Transfer Procedure (see Section E16.15), the registrant will then be given the
opportunity to apply for a Registration Transfer. If the registrant declines to apply for a Registration Transfer,
the Registration will be revoked and the SLD returned to the pool of available
domains.
E17. Criteria For Registration
The criteria for Registration and Reservation are given in Sections E16.6.1
and E16.6.2. The reasoning behind these criteria is to provide a TLD which is
available only to those who are actually in business, and to deter those
wishing to purchase SLDs for cyber-hoarding or to unfairly make use of the
trademarks or famous marks of others. The reasons for using these criteria are
given in detail in Sections E22 and E23.
E18. Application Process
The Application process for Registrations and Reservations is given in Sections
E16.13 and E16.14.
E19. Enforcement Procedures
The enforcement mechanisms for ensuring that applicants meet the required
application criteria are described in detail in Sections E16.13 and E16.14. Essentially, these mechanisms consist of
requiring that appropriate documents are submitted in support of the
Application. These documents will be reviewed by a Registration Administrator
who may, if necessary, directly contact third parties to verify the information
in the submitted documentation.
E20. Appeal Process
The appeal process is described in Section E16/16.
E21. Third Party Cancellation
We support and will require that all Registrants abide by a slightly
expanded version of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy described in Section E6. This gives the right to third parties to
seek cancellation of a TLD registration for failure to comply with
restrictions.
IV. CONTEXT
OF THE TLD WITHIN THE DNS
E22. Context Of The TLD Within The DNS
This Section, E22, will give a general review of the reasons
for and the expected benefits of the New TLD. In the light of this explanation, we will then give specific
answers to the questions E22 - E27.
We believe that the SLD registration processes should create
an Internet environment that supports those who wish to achieve a business,
organizational, or personal goal by creating a website. It is arguable, however, that the vast
majority of registrations of SLDs actually work against this objective. Five Million .com names were registered in
the first quarter of 2000. A very small
proportion point to an active website. Names
are being purchased on mass, but mainly by cyber-hoarders. Domain name speculation has become the
hottest game in town. Since
"wines.com" sold for $3 Million, and "business.com" sold
for $7.5 Million, everyone wants a piece of the action. A European customer has apparently bought
20,000 names preceded by the string "24hour": 24hourdrug.com, 24hourpizza.com, etc. (this
is only hearsay... but from a source we believe to be reliable).
Basically, we have reached a situation where almost none of
the "good" names (those which are a single word or a recognizable
phrase) are available in the .com TLD, and the vast majority are held by cyber-hoarders.
This creates a problem for the genuine Internet entrepreneur who is often
either forced to pay many thousands of dollars to a cyber-hoarder or to settle
for a second best name.
We believe that it is not possible to solve this problem
simply by adding to the number of unrestricted TLDs. If a TLD looks like it’s becoming successful, cyber-hoarders quickly
buy up the names. For example, if a
".flowers" domain is created cyberhoarders will instantly buy
"roses.flowers", "springflowers.flowers",
"sendmeflowers.flowers" and so on. Once again, the genuine business owner will be at the mercy of
name speculators.
The New TLD that we propose would go a long way towards
solving this problem. Each application
for the New TLD will be assessed according to the criteria given in Sections E16.6.1
and E16.6.2 of this proposal, and only approved if this assessment shows that
the Applicant is a real business. In
addition, we will place heavy restrictions on transfers of SLDs (as described
in Section E16.11.1). These measures
will almost completely prevent speculation in names under the New TLD.
The Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy has gone a long way to
prevent they inappropriate use of well-known trademarks of others. We propose a slightly extended version of
this policy (as described in Section E6.); however, it does not solve all of
the problems. Firstly, the victim of
such an infringement is still forced to go through the inconvenience of
bringing the matter to arbitration. Secondly,
it is possible that the owner of a famous trademark could remain unaware for
some time of the inappropriate use of their mark. For example, it is conceivable that sites making use of misspelled
well-known names could exist for some time without the true owner of the mark
becoming aware of the fact. For example, at the time for writing
“morganstanly.com” (misspelling of Morgan Stanley) advertises travel, and real
estate services. Once again, the
proposed New TLD would go a long way towards solving this problem. All
applications will be checked for blatant intellectual property infringement as
described in Section E5.0.2, and all names applied for will be listed in the
Listing of Names Applied For as described in Section E5.0.4. We believe that
these elements combined with the cost and effort involved in application, and
the likelihood that the application will be rejected or lost through
arbitration proceedings, make it less likely that Applicants will register
common misspellings of famous names under the New TLD.
All applications will be assessed according to simple
criteria (see Sections E16.6.1 and E16.6.2.), and only be approved if the
Applicant is a real business and if the name does not make inappropriate use of
an existing trademark. By only
supplying .biz SLDs to real businesses, we will ensure a continuously available
supply of names to those that actually intend to do business on the Internet,
and we will prevent Domain Name speculation by cyber-hoarders under this TLD. We also believe that the availability of
names under the New TLD to genuine entrepreneurs will have the effect of
considerably reducing the prices of hoarded .com names and reducing the overall
level of cyber-hoarding throughout all TLDs.
The New TLD will also benefit the Internet community by
screening applications for those that make inappropriate use of a trademark or
of a famous mark. Despite out best
efforts, we expect that there will be some disputes over rights to name after
registration. We do expect that this
will happen much more rarely than in the unrestricted TLDs.
Essentially, our advantage is that we are charging a price
for registration which allows us to review each application individually, and
therefore make the best efforts to ensure that the Applicant is a real business
and does not intend to make inappropriate use of another's intellectual
property.
The TLD will target the business community for businesses of
all sizes. This community is already
served by the DNS, but as described above, the level of cyber-hoarding has made
the situation very difficult for business wishing to obtain an appropriate name
without paying a heavy ransom to cyber-hoarders.
E25 & E26. How
Proposal Meets Unmet Needs and How Would it be Useful to Internet Users?
See the answer to E22.
This proposal does not significantly enhance competition
among registration services. We believe,
however, that the New TLD would create a viable and popular alternative to the
.com registry run by Network Solutions.
E29. Concepts
Likely To Be Proved Or Disproved.
The proposed New TLD will serve as a "proof of
concept" in a number of ways:
(a) The
.com, .net, .org TLDs and all of the publicly offered ccTLDs are unrestricted
and award all SLDs either on a first-come, first-serve basis, or in the case of
the .tv TLD, to the highest bidder. No TLD currently uses a manual assessment
procedure. We hope to prove that the New TLD will demonstrate the viability of
using such manual assessment procedures to more effectively screen applications.
(b) The
proposed New TLD is not going to be attractive to all businesses. It may, however, prove very attractive to a
significant minority. What is the
effect on the Internet of having a popular “niche TLD” of this type?
(c)
Because of the time and the complexities involved in such
screening procedures, the cost of SLDs under the New TLD will be set at $2,000.
We hope to demonstrate that Applicants
will be happy to pay considerably higher amounts than the $20 - $70 fees for a
.com name in return for not needing to pay off cyber-hoarders and obtaining the
name that they need.
(d)
We hope to demonstrate that manual assessment procedures and
screenings will considerably lessen the number of instances of cyber-hoarding
or inappropriate use of existing trademarks.
(e)
We believe that the proposed New TLD will demonstrate that
creating restricted TLDs can reduce cyber-hoarding and domain name
speculation.
(f)
We hope to prove that restricted TLDs provide a useful function
in the DNS.
The success of the introduction of the New TLD should be
evaluated using the following criteria among others:
(a) Volume
of Registrations. Are there at least
10,000 registrations in the first year of operations? Although 10,000 may not
be a huge number when compared to “.com” registrations (most of which are
purchased by cyber-hoarders) this level of registrations would show that the New
TLD effectively met a minority need.
(b) Effectiveness
and efficiency of Application procedure. Are Applications completed in a reasonable period of time (say
within an average of less than two weeks after the receipt of documents) and
with an acceptable level of errors and glitches?
(c) Reduction
in cyber-squatting and trademark infringement as a result of screening
procedures. Are a smaller proportion of
name than in the .com world brought to arbitration proceedings?
(d) What
is general consumer and business reaction to the New TLD (in the press, on news
groups, etc)? Is it popular and seen as
solving a problem of cyber-squatting and cyber-hoarding, or is it seen as an
infringement of the rights of Internet users?
We believe that there are several benefits for the Internet
and the DNS resulting from the New TLD.
The New TLD would effectively demonstrate whether there is
room for and benefit from TLDs which involves manual screening procedures. It
would also demonstrate in general whether there is benefit from a restricted
commercial TLD. If this concept works,
it would then seem logical to create other restricted commercial TLDs, e.g.
.lawyer (where one has to have a law qualification to register), .doctor (where
a medical qualification is required), .florist (where one has to have a flower
shop), .restaurant and so on. We believe that the level of success of a
restricted commercial TLD could in many ways help to steer the future course of
the DNS.
The New TLD will effectively eliminate much of the problem
of cyber-hoarding. As “good” names will
be readily available through the New TLD for genuine entrepreneurs, there will
be much less reason to buy a name from a cyber-hoarder. This will therefore
tend to considerably reduce the profits from cyber-hoarding and will have the
effect of considerably reducing domain name hoarding throughout the DNS. This in itself is a major benefit, as cyber-hoarding
is probably the biggest problem with the Internet facing the average Internet
entrepreneur.
In addition, however, it is very difficult to assess the
effectiveness or usefulness of other New TLDs while cyber-hoarding is still
such a big problem. If new unrestricted
TLDs are introduced, all of the “good” names will be bought up in a rush by
cyber-hoarders, and it will therefore be difficult to asses the true potential
value of the those TLDs. If, however,
the New TLD proposed in this document is introduced first, this will mean that
subsequent TLDs introduced far less effected by the problem of cyber-hoarding
and it will therefore be far easier to asses the true benefit of those
subsequent introductions.