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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. E11.1 Summary of Approach 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. E11.3
Additional Protection For Existing Marks During the Start Up Period 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. E13
Limits per Registrant 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. E15
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