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New sTLD RFP Application

.cat

Part B. Application Form


Name and Address fields

Company/Organization Information

Company Name Associació puntCAT
Company Address 1 Carrer Girona, 63; 2on., 1a.
Company Address 2 N/A
Company City Barcelona
Company State/Province N/A
Company Postal Code E-08009
Company Website Address http://www.puntcat.org
Company Country Catalonia (European Union)

Sponsoring Organization Information

Sponsoring Organization Name Fundació puntCAT, which would be formed only in case theTLD is delegated
Sponsoring Organization Address 1 N/A
Sponsoring Organization Address 2 N/A
Sponsoring Organization City N/A
Sponsoring State/Province N/A
Sponsoring Organization Postal Code N/A
Sponsoring Organization Country N/A
Sponsoring Organization Website Address N/A

 


Namestrings and Conventions

First sTLD choice: .CAT
Naming Conventions:
.CAT is proposed as a Sponsored TLD for the Catalan linguistic and cultural
community

Registrants will be allowed to register dirctly under the TLD, ie, at the second level. Example: mydomain.cat

Second sTLD choice: .CTL
Naming Conventions:
We are bound to express that we provide second and third choices because its is
specifically offered in tha Application form, and just in case unforseen
conflicts with our first choice could surface. But .cat is by far our preferred
proposal, with the other options lying well behind in terms of usefulness and
identification value for the sponsored community.

Third sTLD choice: .CATALA
Naming Conventions:
.CATALA is the name of the Catalan language precisely in Catalan language. The
problem is that besides being fairly long for a TLD (only .museum is that
long), it is a misspelling. It should be .català, ie, the ending a has a "& a
grave" character in HTML or, in Unicode, u+00E0).

As there are not TLDs with non-ASCII characters, and we are not proposing to do so at this time, this third-choice string is particularly unappealing.


Sponsoring Organization Structure
Sponsoring Organization Structure

SPONSORING ORGANIZATION
 
 This application is submitted by Associació puntCAT, an association 
 (non-for-profit, equal-voting membership entity composed of other legal 
 entities, but not of individuals) based in Barcelona. This Association has 
 been incorporated and it is operated in order to vehicle the filing of the 
 application for the delegation of the .cat TLD.  At present, Associació 
 puntCAT is composed of 67 members, covering a wide range of sectors and 
 activities linked to the Catalan linguistic and cultural community. 
 Moreover, many entities involved in the said Community are in the process 
 of joining the Association, so it is foreseen a significant growth of its 
 membership.
 
 Should ICANN approve this application, the Association would be substituted 
 by a Foundation to be named Fundació puntCAT, and the Association would be 
 dissolved. Such a substitution is due to the clear advantages that using a 
 foundation for sponsoring a TLD would suppose. Indeed, an association is 
 based on formal membership, making quite difficult the access to membership 
 to entities with different legal backgrounds in different jurisdictions (as 
 it will be the case in regards of the Sponsor of the .cat TLD) and it also 
 raises significant difficulties when trying to accept at the same time 
 individual and corporate membership. By contrast, a foundation seems to be 
 a more efficient alternative, as it does not require formal membership. 
 Indeed, according to Spanish and Catalan civil law (which will apply to the 
 Foundation, as it will be based in Barcelona as well), a foundation is just 
 an entity managing a number of assets for the achievement of a concrete 
 goal (the sponsorship of the .cat TLD, in the case of Fundació puntCAT). 
 Therefore, any formal inconvenience derived from access and use of the 
 membership would be avoided by using a foundation. Actually, such a type of 
 entity will allow actual participation in the policy-making process and 
 election of the governing bodies by any member of the defined community 
 without recourse to legal membership procedures. Joining such entity would 
 be based on a mere declaration of will without more cumbersome 
 administrative procedures, such as being accepted by the current members.
 
 
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
 
 Once the foundation will be established, its formal structure will be based 
 on the following organs:
 
- Assembly of Trustees: This is going to be the organ charged with the 
 management and representation of the foundation (without prejudice of its 
 capacity to delegate some of its functions to other organs of the 
 foundation). In principle, this organ will be composed at most by 50 
 members. The assembly will be composed by representatives from different 
 sectors of the Community. In particular, the assembly will be composed by 
 representatives covering:
 
  - the academic sector
  - the media sector,
  - the corporate sector
  - the non-for-profit entities sector
  - individuals holding .cat domain names.
 
 Each of the above-mentioned categories will be granted with at least 10 
 members, to the exception of individuals holding .cat domain names, who 
 will be granted with at least 5 members. Nonetheless, from the moment of 
 establishing the foundation until the moment where the .cat TLD will be 
 fully operative such an assembly will be exceptionally composed by all the 
 members of the current association that will converge into the new foundation.
 
- Executive Committee: The Assembly of Trustees will appoint an Executive 
 Committee, charged with the tasks of managing the foundation, including the 
 supervision of officers and staff. This committee will be composed by two 
 members from the corporate sector of the Community, two members from the 
 non-for-profit entities sector, one member from the academic sector, one 
 member from the media sector and one member representing the individuals 
 holding .cat domain names.
 
- Chief Executive Officer: The Executive Committee will be entitled to 
 appoint a Chief Executive Officer or General Manager, charged with the 
 execution of the decisions adopted by the Executive Committee as well as 
 with the direct supervision of the staff.
 
 In addition to the above-mentioned organs, a General Forum and an Ombudsman 
 will be established. Both organs are described further below.
 

MISSION
 
 The sole purpose of the Foundation will be to serve as the Sponsoring 
 Organization for the .cat sTLD under delegation from ICANN. It will 
 establish and enforce the .cat policies, and outsource, in principle, its 
 technical operation.
 
 This will be the only activity of the Foundation.


DEFINITION OF THE COMMUNITY
  
 The .cat TLD is intended for the Catalan Linguistic and Cultural Community, 
 ie, for those identifying themselves and/or their activities with the 
 promotion of those areas in the Internet. Please refer below to 
 "Appropriateness of Sponsored TLD Community".
 

STICKING TO THE INTEREST OF THE COMMUNITY
 
 The puntCAT Foundation will be by its nature a non-for-profit, non partisan 
 representative of the whole community. Participation to the policy-making 
 procedures and election of the Trustees will be open to all registrants, in 
 a structured way that will prevent any given sector of activity or special 
 interest to prevail in the long run. It is not a pre-existing entity from 
 that community trying to evolve into new fields of activity, but a platform 
 created by the community itself for the sole purpose of collectively 
 managing the .cat TLD.
 
 Hereinafter this application will refer to both the existing Association 
 and the successor Foundation collectively as puntCAT. Only when specific 
 reeference to either one or the other entities is required a distinction 
 will be made. "Punt" means "dot" so the name directly refers to its only 
 purpose: becoming the Sponsor Organization for the .cat TLD for the Catalan 
 Linguistic and Cultural Community.

Appropriateness of Sponsored TLD Community
Appropriateness of Sponsored TLD Community 

Please provide detail on the community to be served and explain why the defined
community to be served is appropriate for the creation of an sTLD. 
 
As repeatedly stated in this application form, the .cat sTLD is requested on
behalf of the Catalan Linguistic and Cultural Community. It might sound strange
to request a TLD for a language (and this is not the case, even if it looks
close to it). But then, it also seemed strange to some the idea of Sponsored
TLD altogether! 

Why a sTLD for this type of community? puntCAT submits that this is precisely
the type of sTLD we should think of.

TLDs, the DNS as such, is used in many ways (and this has changed over time)
but its main purpose is still to be unique identifiers of
machines/services/people in the Internet. We all know that “services”,
“products”, “people” are not exactly the object of the DNS domain name. But we
grew used to see it that way. And social realities count. Similarly, and even
if all domain names have exactly the same identification value from a technical
point of view, “meaning”, both at the second level AND at the top level add
critical values to users (domain name holders or not). Meaning, subjective
identification, is as an important value as uniqueness and universal resolution
of the name from the users point of view (and the various Internationalized
Domain Names experiments would even suggests that in some cases, even more
important).

Users want choice. They want to be able to decide whether they identify
themselves to the rest of the Internet with geographic/political criteria
(ccTLDs); nature of their activity (commercial; non-commercial); sector of
activity (aeronautic industry) type of service (Museum) or even corporate type
(Cooperative). No one excludes another. Multiple identifications can be used,
as we can visit different districts in a city for different types of activity.
Choice and diversity, not mutual exclusion.

ICANN decided therefore that it was worthwhile to experiment with a new type of
TLDs, so-called “sponsored” TLDs, devoted to and managed by a given Community.
This is a community with clear membership, needs and enough interest to apply
for one. 

It is only natural therefore that puntCAT applies for a .cat sTLD. The Internet
is a lot of things, but probably the most important is a communication space
(and means). Human beings communicate in a variety of forms, but language is
the most common, and the Internet is no exception.  The vast majority of people
will concentrate their communications to and with the services and people using
their same language. If there is a real sense of belonging to a given community
within the Internet this is precisely because those belonging to the community
are communicating in their own language, no matter which one it is. The sense
of sharing “commonalities”, of sharing common interests, needs, Internet
landscapes is nowhere more evident than within the many different linguistic
communities. Even if they are, most often, completely invisible to the
predominant English-based Internet, which many assume to be THE only
communications space.

A clear and deep sense of community, and especially, a clear perception of
online community, is far more relevant here.  Far more dense and intense  than
those of the online (and we underline this aspect) communities served by many
of the current sTLDs, and many of the proposals being submitted now.

So a language community fits within the concept, but why .cat? Because it is a
community interested enough to organise itself in order to apply and manage
such TLD. It has sufficient size to make that proposal viable, because it has
sufficient ideas to make it work, and to make it useful to he community and to
the whole of the Internet.

The first question puntCAT will be posed is: why Catalan and not English or Rom
or Swahili or [insert your favorite language here]. puntCAT does not have an
answer, but knows that it is a wrong question. We know our needs, but cannot
speak for others. English has not one, but many ccTLDs and gTLDs which are
predominantly, if not exclusively, devoted to communication spaces where
English is the vehicle. Catalan doesn’t. And it doesn’t have a good substitute,
either. Certainly not a DBS feature but one of the most common Net related
behaviors for multinational firms is adapting their contents to the languages
of different user groups.  The universal solution is matching the language
versions with domains of the ccTLDs where those languages are spoken (except
for the US and English, as this is certainly not required). But Google or Yahoo
cannot (yet!) use a google.cat or yahoo.cat for their (existing)
Catalan-language versions.

Sometimes this is not an issue in the commercial world as the language is
associated with a local market. Therefore the ccTLD is suitable. But product
and service markets are not all that we can find in the Net. Communities
sharing cultures, not necessarily confine themselves to either market lines or
political borders. Lots of languages are used across many different Countries.
Catalan, for instance, is spoken in three adminsitratives divisions of Spain
(and partly in a fourth), another in France and just one in Italy, as well as
being the sole official language of a country, Andorra. The political and
economic realities of the last 150 years have sent hundreds of thousands of
Catalan speakers to all continents. Most languages share similar realities. And
many share the feeling that ccTLDs are a different thing, that political (or
geographic) entities and linguistic communities are not always the same. Note,
for instance, that the Spanish Senate requested, some time ago, a TLD for the
Spanish-speaking community (.his, they proposed).  They are complementary,
certainly not exclusionary.

puntCAT knows the community wants it and can sustain it. Catalan, as a
language, is not marginal at all in Internet usage terms. A couple of studies
(http://www.vilaweb.com/especials/5anys/enquesta.html and
http://www.softcatala.org/articles/article26.htm) rank Catalan as, respectively
the 19th and 23rd language in terms of online use (the second study is more
recent uses a much better methodology). The exact place tells very little, but
the relationship with other languages is telling. It is not English, but is
certainly not marginal.

Catalan is not a marginal language offline either. Taking a single statistic,
the number of books published in 2002, Catalan totals 8183, compared to roughly
7000 in Finland, 6000 in Greece of 9000 in Hungary (the statitistic only refers
to books edited in Catalan, excluding for these purposes books in Spanish
edited by Publishers based in Catalonia, which surpassed that number but should
not be counted here in fairness). In relative terms, 0.76 books were published
for each 1000 Catalan speakers, the same percentage as Italy or France. We
could provide lots of statistics about people, companies, associations, etc.
But puntCAT believes that this comparative numbers should suffice at this stage
to proof viability.

So Catalan-speaking people manage to keep more than acceptable statitistics in
those areas, even if we all had the personal advantage of being at least
bilingual, if not trilingual (normally with Spanish, less with French, some
with Italian, the rest with different languages. Languages might sometimes
compete in the territory, but not in cultural terms.

Cultural socialization, even more than language, is the flavour we want to give
to this TLD. Note that even if none of you (or few...) will know a catalan
writer, you certainly know painters such as Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró or Antoni
Tàpies, musicians like Pau Casals, Montserrat Caballé or Josep Carreras,
architects like Antoni Gaudí, Josep Puig i Cadafalch or Ricardo Bofill. We stop
here ;-) There are certainly wrters as remarkable as the artists mentioned
here, but language is a bigger barrier in this case. We want the TLD as an
identifier for all those using and promoting the Catalan language or Culture.

But how can we define the community? How can we know who belongs to that
community? Well, puntCAT knows. Because it is promoted buy the most relevant,
and will be formed by nearly all, the Catalan language and cultural-related
entities. They know their members. They know the criteria. They know they have
to contribute to this effort, by helping sorting these questions out. Please
refer to all the different registration procedures, Eligibility and Naming
Selection services and compliance and dispute-resolution mechanisms. Perhaps
someone will be able to point out a mistake one day (ie, someone registered a
domain with puntCAT infringing the rules. Perhaps. But we will commit all our
resources to prevent this from ever being a problem for any third party. And
this is what counts.

The next question would be:  What happens if all languages and cultures also
apply for a TLD? Why this one and not another one? puntCAT doesn’t know. But it
is clear that it would be unfair to tell .aero that they cold not go until we
had the complete taxonomy of all possible industries, present, past and future.
It would be similarly unfair rejecting .museum because perhaps monument sites
or oral archives are not prepared or willing or interested in managing a TLD. 

The final question would certianly be: .cat? Meow!! Yes ;-) But then .net means
“clean” in Catalan, and .nu, “naked”. And this can be expanded to exhaustion.
Some names are nicer in different parts of the world. That’s a fact, not a bug.

puntCAT comes here, with huge support from its community, with a solid
proposal, a viable registry and lots of innovative ideas. Give .cat a chance!

Representation
As stated in "Organisational Structure" above, the current structure of 
 Associació puntCAT is widely representative of the Community. At this 
 regard, one ofpuntCAT's main concerns is to fully grant representation to 
 all the members of the Community and this is the reason why puntCAT aims at 
 establishing a foundation once the .cat TLD is approved by ICANN, for 
 instance many associations based outside Spain or the European Union have 
 met some difficulties in joining the association. Inclusiveness of the 
 whole community is the key operative issue here.
 
 Indeed, the use of such a structure would grant a flexible structure, 
 allowing any member to actively participate in the activities of the 
 foundation, regardless of its concrete legal nature or jurisdiction. In 
 addition, other formal problems (such as appointing a representative in 
 Spain, where the association will be seated) would be avoided.
 
 Moreover, it would grant an easy access to all the members of the Community 
 to the policy-making procedures as well as to other issues linked to the 
 management of the .cat TLD. In this sense, it is foreseen to allow 
 participation of all the members of the Community (and not just of those 
 involved in the foundation) by means of a General Forum, as described in 
 "policy Making Procedures and Communications" below.
 
 As for the categories of stakeholders to be represented, we have already 
 sketched them in "Structual Organization" above. Let's add here that while 
 at the Assembly of Trustees, the large number of representatives granted to 
 each category will allow internal diversity within each of them. On the 
 other hand, for the more reduced Executive Committee the By-laws (already 
 approved by the Association) will provide further warranties of diverse 
 representation. There, for instance, for the two representatives of the 
 non-for-profit sector it is provded that one of them will represent 
 entities specifically devoted promote Catalan Culture while the other will 
 be ellected from NGOs and other non-for-profit entities devoted to any 
 other purpose. In the same line, the two representatives of the corporate 
 sector will divided between one coming from companies mainly related to 
 Internet services at-large and the other from any other commercial user of 
 the .cat TLD.

To provide a general sense of the quantity, quality and diversity of the
initial membership, we attach the list of members we provide the list as of
March 9, 2004 (please note that we had received many new memberships during
this last week, plus dozens of exrpressions of interest).

Acció Cultural del País Valencià
ACET - Associació Catalana d'Enginyers de Telecomunicacins
ACETT - Associació Catalana d'Enginyers Tècnics de Telecomunicacions
Amics de la Llengua Catalana
Associació Arrels
Associació Catalana de la Premsa Comarcal
Associació Catalana de Premsa Gratuïta
Associació Catalana de Professionals
Associació Catalana de Radiodifusió Privada
Associació Catalana de Socors Mutus "Montepio de Montserrat"
Associació Conèixer CATalunya
Associació Cultural Catalana de Queensland Brisbane - Austràlia
Associació Cultural Músics per la Llengua
Associació d'Antics Alumnes d'Enginyeria i Arquitectura  La Salle
Associació de Publicacions Periòdiques en Català d'Abast Nacional
Associació d'Editors en Llengua Catalana
Associació d'Empresaris Productors de Multimèdia (ADEPM-Catalunya)
Associació d'Empreses de Noves Tecnologies de Girona 
Associació d'Escriptors en Llengua Catalana
Associació d'Usuaris de Java de Catalunya
Associació en Defensa del domini .CT
Associació Productors Audiovisuals de Catalunya
Associació Professionals Autònoms de Catalunya
Associazione Italiana di Studi Catalani
Capítol Català de la Internet Society
Casa Nostra Baden-Wettingen / Grup Montseny
Casal Català de Brussel.les
Casal Català de Vancouver
Casal de Catalunya de Buenos Aires
Casal dels Catalans de Califòrnia
Catalan Broadcasting Society Inc - Radiodifusió Catalana - Melbourne -
Austràlia -
"Catalònia" Grup de Catalans de Sâo Paulo
Centre Català de Rosario
Centre Català del PEN Club, Associació d'escriptors
Centre Cultural Català de Perpinyà-CASAL JAUME Ier
Centre Internacional Escarré per a les Minories Ètniques i les Nacions
Cercle Tecnològic de Catalunya
CLUB D'AMICS DE LA UNESCO DE BARCELONA
Col·legi Oficial d'Enginyeria en Informàtica de Catalunya
Consorci Local i Comarcal de Comunicació
Corporació Catalana de Ràdio i Televisió
Enciclopèdia Catalana
Federació Catalana de Centres d'Ensenyament
Federació de Televisions Municipals de Catalunya
Federació d'Entitats de la Catalunya Nord
Federació d'Organismes i Entitats de Televisió Local de Catalunya
Federació Ràdios Locals de Catalunya
Fundació Catalana per a la Recerca (FCR)
Fundació Jaume I
Fundació Societat i Cultura
Gremi d'Editors de Catalunya
Institut d'Estudis Catalans
Institut d'Estudis Eivissencs
Institut d'Estudis Ilerdencs
Institut Interuniversitari Joan Lluís Vives
Institut Linguapax
Instituto Brasileiro de Filosofia e Ciência "Raimundo Lúlio"
Intracatalonia 
La Bressola
Nominalia Internet, SL
North American Catalan Society
Obra Cultural Balear
Obra Cultural de l'Alguer
Òmnium Cultural
Orfeó Català de Mèxic, A.C.
Vilaweb

Note also that many of these members are in fact the associations or
federations of record for their respective field.

Openness and Tansparency
For puntCAT, granting effective openness and transparency in the development of
its activities is one of the key issues related to the launching and management
of the .cat TLD. Indeed, given the fact that the Sponsor will not be a
closed-membership  organization, the involvement of the Community in said
activities requires that its members do have full access to any information
produced in regards of .cat TLDs, in order to allow them to actively
participate in the policies-making procedures as well as other decisions linked
to said domain names.

Punt CAT considers that such a goal can only be granted by means of the
adoption of several instruments that allow the members of the Community being
actively involved in the development of puntCAT’s activities. At this respect,
By-laws of the Foundation foresee the appointment of an Ombudsman, charged with
the task of receiving complaints and observations on how puntCAT develops its
functions. Such a figure should not be confused with a Customer Service. On the
contrary, it will rather deal with the comments from the members of the
Community in respect to the behavior (or the lack thereof) of puntCAT when
dealing with their respective circumstances.

 The Ombudsman shall obviously be independent from puntCAT, behaving as an
impartial party when dealing with disputes or complaints filed by members of
the Community. Moreover, the Ombudsman may be whether an individual or an
entity. In this sense, puntCAT has received several informal offers from
entities such as Universities or Newspapers that have adopted similar figures
for the development of their activities. At this respect, those entities have
offered their experience and knowledge on this issue in order to allow puntCAT
an adequate launching of this service.

 The Ombudsman will elaborate and publish a Yearly Report on the activities of
puntCAT, collecting the complaints filed during the corresponding year,
describing the most important problems and comments raised by the members of
the Community and making the recommendations it considers necessary in order to
grant an improvement of the quality of the services rendered by puntCAT. As
stated above, this report shall be made available to anyone, by posting it in
puntCAT’s web site. In addition, the Ombudsman will deliver a copy of his
report to ICANN as a part of the evaluation materials related to puntCAT.

 As described in other Sections of this form (“Policy-Making Process”, for
example) other instruments will be enacted in order to grant full transparency
and openness to puntCAT’s activities. At this respect, a Public Forum will be
permanently available to any member of the Community for posting his comments
or suggestions. In addition, access to the key information and materials
related to puntCAT’s activities will be made available to anyone, by posting
them in puntCAT’s web site. In this sense, for example, the Secretary of the
Assembly will post the minutes of the meetings online. Furthermore, said
meeting will be web-casted, so any member of the Community will be able to
attend them and follow the discussions.

 All the documents related to puntCAT shall be drafted in Catalan. Nonetheless,
the most relevant ones (such as, for example, the Ombudsman Yearly Report) will
also be made available in English, in order to grant their comprehension to
anyone, whether belonging to the Community or not. Finally, it is also
important to point out that many materials will also be available in “offline”
format (such as paper, for example).

Initial Directors, Officers, and Other Staff
All this information is avilable in Part C, Business Plan, question V

Selection of Directors, Officers, Members, Staff
Once established according to the rules already explained for the population of
the Assembly of Trustees and selection of the Executive Committee itself, such
Committee will appoint a General Manager, under the advise of the Steering
Committee. Additional officers will be selected by the Executive Committee, as
well, in accordance to the proposal made by the General Manager.

Further information on the Executive committee may be found at Part C, Business
Plan - Current Operations, Question V.

Moreover, initial staff in the administrative and ENS areas will be hired by
the Steering Committee, under recommendation of the part-time consultants
referred in the precedent section.

Meetings and Communication
In accordance to the By-laws of the Foundation, the Assembly of Trustees 
 will hold at least an annual meeting. Nonetheless, it is certain that 
 beyond this legal requirement said assembly will meet most probably 
 quarterly, at least during the first years of existence of the foundation.
 
 The annual meeting of the Asembly of Trsutees will be hold in Barcelona, as 
 it is required to hold it in the place of the legal seat of the foundation. 
 Other meetings will take place in different places, as the Assembly itself 
 decides. Meetings of the Assembly of Trustees will offer participation 
 through videoconference or teleconference or any other technical mean that 
 offers its members the maximal flexibility for attending said meetings. At 
 this regard, one of puntCAT's main goals is to make an extensive use of the 
 most modern online systems for accessing the meetings (by means, for 
 example, of web-casting in real time and granting access to the members of 
 the Community by means of the foundation’s web site). Thus, the use of said 
 technologies would not only allow more flexibility to the trustees but 
 would also grant the members of the Community full access to the 
 discussions held during said meetings, with the corresponding fulfillment 
 of the goal of transparency aimed by puntCAT in regards of its activities. 
 Information about puntCAT's activities will be further distributed thorugh 
 mailing list, RSS feeds and or any other available technical way for 
 disseminating information. It is planned also to publish a quarterly 
 newsletter for more conventional dissemination.
 
 At the end of each meeting, the Secretary of the Assembly of Trustees will 
 prepare the corresponding minutes, being posted at the web site of puntCAT 
 once elaborated. Said minutes will be public, so anyone will be able to 
 access their contents.
 
 The Executive Committee will meet monthly and meetings will be held by 
 means of videoconference, teleconference or any other similar technique 
 that allows remote communication between the members of said committee.
 
 Finally, the permanent online (mailing list) based forum will hold an 
 annual meeting. Such meetings will be held in conjunction with 
 Internet-related events in different locations. Remote participation will 
 be indeed offered. For more details, please see "Policy Making Processes" 
 below.

Fiscal Information
In accordance with what it has been stated in "Organizational Structure" 
 above, the Association filing this candidature is just a vehicle for 
 preparing and managing such a filing. In consequence, no economic activity 
 has been achieved by Associació puntCAT other than paying the fees to ICANN 
 and to its own advisors in order to prepare such application (these funds 
 have been kindly donated by some founding Members). Moreover, no staff has 
 been recruited either. The management of the association is provided pro 
 bono by the members of its Executive Committee, and the application process 
 itself, but the specific Steering Committee referred to above.
 
 On the other hand, in respect of the Foundation to be established in case 
 of approval of the .cat TLD, it is foreseen that the initial assets it 
 shall be granted with by its trustees will amount between 150,000 and 
 250,000 Euros. Please refer to Part C. "Business Plan" for details on 
 number and timing of staff addition. During the application period the 
 Steering Committee will be assisted by Eric Brunner-Williams as part-time 
 consultant acting as CTO and Amadeu Abril i Abril as part-time Policy 
 Advisor. Again refer to "Business Plan" for further details on their 
 respective roles.

Indemnification from Liability
The Foundation will be based upon Spanish and Catalan Law, as it shall be 
 established in Barcelona. Consequently, the liability regime foreseen by 
 the Catalan Foundations Act will apply.
 
 In accordance to said Act, the maximal extent of liability for foundations 
 is the amount corresponding to the assets it manages. Thus, once said 
 assets are no longer available, the foundation must be terminated. 
 Moreover, in principle, liability for the trustees and officers is 
 excluded. Nevertheless, such a responsibility will be given in case they 
 have behaved in bad faith or by negligence.
 
 For insurance plans, please refer to Part C of this Application Form.

Proposed Extent of Policy-Making Authority
The Sponsoring Organisation for the .cat TLD, puntCAT, for and on behalf of the
Catalan linguistic and cultural community seeks delegation of the following
policies:

- Establishment, Maintenance and Modification of the TLD naming policies as
they reflect the identification of the community served by puntCAT.

- Nature of the Eligibility and Name Selection services to be performed in
order to ensure Charter-compliant procedures.

- Design and management of the Charter Compliance Procedure.

- Design of the Charter Reconsideration Policy

- Establishement of a .CAT Code of Conduct.

- Establishment of a Mediation Procedure.

- Accreditation, in conjunction with ICANN, of additional dispute resolution
providers for .cat-specific dispute resolution policies.

- Selection of the Registry Operator and other outsourcing service providers.

- Pricing for its services to the registrars (registration+ENS; renewals;
transfers; Redemption Grace Period; Defensive Registrations; etc.)

- Additional requirements to ICANN-accredited registrars to be included in the
Registry-Registrar Agreement, but only on those areas where specific provisions
are absolutely needed, such as incorporating the Charter policies and
procedures into the Registration Agreement, to provide those specific
provisions in the Agreement in Catalan (without prejudice of doing so in other
languages; puntCAT would provide the Catalan versions of the required documents
to the registrars).

- Establishment and update of a list of Reserved domain names (as it is now
common practice, one and two letters strings, names of Internet related
services and protocols both in English and in Catalan; and symilar categories;
we will consult GAC the convenience of reserving the name of countries at the
second level).

- Establishment and update of a list of Community-assigned domain names (please
refer below to "Add New Value to the Internet Name Space" for examples of this
concept).

- Finaly, puntCAT understands the convenience of a common Who is policy but it
would like requesting some special provisions for .cat TLDs. On one hand, the
addition of some fields like one form-declaration of intent of use. On the
other hand, puntCAT is greatly concerned about the convenience and even the
legality of some current policies such bulk Whois license, mandatory
publication of certain types of personal data and indiscriminated access
through Port 43. puntCAt does explicitly request a delegation of policy in this
area, provided that special provision for this TLD could be negotiated with
ICANN.

 Even if delegation for those areas is requested, puntCAT commits to notify any
such substantive modification in advance to ICANN's policy structures (such as
the GNSO) and request their comments and evaluations. For all those areas where
delegation will not occur in full form, puntCAT will striclty abide to ICANN
policies and procedures.

Policy-Making Process
puntCAT aims at involving the Community when developing the policies it will
apply to the .cat TLD. Thus, it shall create a policy-making procedure that
balances the participation of the members of the Community with the
consultation to the experts that may offer optimal policies for the management
of this TLD.

At this respect, puntCAT will appoint a Policy Officer, who will be in charge
of assisting and drafting all relevant initial and further modified policies.
Moreover, an Advisory Council on this topic will be appointed. Such a council
will be composed by experts, not necessarily from the .cat Community, belonging
to the Internet industry and it will advise puntCAT in the adoption of new
policies or the amendment of the existing ones.

Thus, the adoption of a new policy as well as the amendment of an existing one
will necessarily follow the procedure that is further described. First of all,
the Policy Offer will draft a Statement of Issues related to a given policy at
its own initiative, at the initiative of the CEO or at the initiative of any of
the legal organs of puntCAT. 

Once such a document is drafted, it will be simultaneously filed before the
Executive Committee, the Assembly of Trustees and the Advisory Council. In
addition, the document will also be posted in the Public Forum’s web site (and
distributed through the mailing list, RSS feed etc), in order to allow the
members of the Community to file all the documents they may have within a
three-weeks period.

 Once such a period has expired, the staff will prepare a report containing a
summary of the comments received from the members of the Community and it will
communicate it to the Executive Committee and the Advisory Council.
Additionally, said report shall be posted at the Public Forum’s web site (and
to the other communication means), so any member of the Community may access
it.

 After reviewing the Statement of Issues and the Public Comments Report, the
Advisory Council will issue a Policy Recommendation that will be notified to
ICANN’s GNSO, Policy Development officer, and to puntCAT’S Executive Committee.
Moreover, the Policy Recommendation will be posted at the Public Forum’s web
site, allowing the members of the Community to file comments during a new
three-weeks period. As soon as this period has expired, the staff will
elaborate a new report on the comments sent by the members of the Community and
it will communicate it to the Executive Committee.

 If ICANN raises no objection, the Executive Committee will adopt the Policy
Recommendation by majority-vote, being immediately posted as a new applicable
policy. This policy will be revised by the Assembly of Trustees in case three
members of the Executive Committee, 25 % of the members of the Assembly or 50
.cat domain names registrants request so. In this case, the policy shall be
adopted in case it is approved by a majority of votes of the members of the
assembly from at least four of the five categories included within.

 In case ICANN objects the adoption of the new policy, the corresponding
standard procedures shall be applied in order to solve the issue.


A. Add new value to the Internet name space
It is a fact that any addition of a new TLD to the DNS enhances diversity. In
the case of the .cat TLD proposal the main value it provides is precisely
diversity regarding the type of community; diversity regarding the services
provided; diversity regarding the eligibility mechanisms. On the contrary,
puntCAT submits that the use of the majority of the foreseen registrations will
be the traditional one: a plain Internet identifier. We do not propose to map
complete directories of services, or map applications to the DNS. Thus, in this
other regard it is more traditional. A TLD as we know them.

Diversity

Let’s make an analogy with biology. The recurring tendency is to decrease
biodiversity. Each year many species, both vegetal and animal, disappear. This
in itself is a loss. Each one brings some biological experience that adds value
to life and evolution. Humanity is increasingly aware of the risks of such a
process and is slowly starting to take measures to reverse the cycle.
Therefore, biodiversity is perceived as a value in itself.

It is also a fact that languages are experiencing a similar trend. The
globalization of all aspects of our lives and the increasing strength of
dominant languages is putting strong pressure on the rest of them. The
communicative spaces in most languages is shrinking under this pressure. On the
Internet, the pressure of the dominant language is even bigger. Promotion of
use of other languages to a level that will them viable communication tools is
not only a concern for small or nearly disappearing languages but also to some
of the strongest like Spanish or French. In this context, the .cat TLD proposal
is a humble contribution in the direction of giving dignity of use and equal
chances to less favored languages. It is certainly not a solution and it is
certainly a desperate situation either. It would be an encouraging sign sent to
all sort of communities around the world that cultural diversity has its space
on the Internet. 

As we show in different parts of this application form and will be able to
provide more details during the evaluation process, this is a proposal arising
from a communication space sharing a culture and a language which strongly
supports it. Bear in mind that puntCAT is just a vehicle for this application
process. Even so, we have already 67 members and dozens of others going through
the membership process. It is not an existing association that brings its
members here. Many of our members have on their own hundreds, if not thousands,
of members, but this a special purposed initiatives for this very process. They
have devoted the time, the energy and the money (which, by the way, seems to be
an artificial filter to cut off lots of well-thought proposals) and will keep
doing so. The Community, the one that puntCAT represents, is excited about
pioneering a new type of sponsored TLD: diversity in the cultural and
linguistic space. 

The choice of .cat as the character string for the TLD has been overwhemingly
supported by the Community. CAT is in fact the abbreviation they all use for
different purposes. Among the three funding members of the association, the
Catalan Chapter of Internet Society is known as ISOC-CAT. The Catalan Studies
Institute is IECAT and so on: the Catalan Terminology Consortium is known as
TERMCAT, if someone launches an economic information site it is MERCAT, etc. 

The second and third strings provided by this application form fall well behind
in our Community’s preferences.

Apart from the above-mentioned values, .cat TLD proposes an experiment with
internationalized domain names. Catalan language has only 11 non-ASCII
characters and those would be offered for registration. The innovation would
consist in that each registrant of an IDN string would also get the closest
equivalent ASCII string. For instance, puntCAT will provide the complete
equivalence table during the evaluation period. The reason for doing this is
that it is not completely clear yet that IDNs resolve universally, as it still
depends on the implementation and the browser. It is only for the web, but not
for e-mail or other Internet-related services. PUNICODE relies on UNICODE but
UNICODE is much less stable than what IETF and ICANN seem to think. Future
migrations to other encodings or even complete abandon of the current path can
still happen. This is why puntCAT proposes so-called “Reversible IDN
Registrations” (indeed if the ASCII equivalent is not available, no IDN could
be registered and both strings would follow the same registry life).

Another service our Community has proposed and puntCAT will experiment is
Community.Assigned Domain Names, i.e. names used as a shared resource for
cultural purposes. Let’s give a couple of examples: first, some universities
and publishing companies are offering to sponsor the following experiment: the
names of the major Catalan literary works will be used for publishing there the
integral work (if it is already in the public domain). Another example from the
cultural side this time comes from gastronomy… an integral part of Catalan
culture J puntCAT will launch a series of “wiki-wiki receipts” where all .cat
TLD registrants will be able to contribute their own variances of typical
Catalan dishes. A third service that at this time has not been approved by our
Community is the “Dictionary DNS”, this is reserving all the common words in
Catalan language and building specific sites with definitions, examples of
literary works, ethimology and so on. But, as we said, this does not seem the
direction our Community will follow. 

puntCAT being a non-for-profit entity whose sole purpose is managing a TLD for
the Catalan linguistic and cultural community cannot generate profits or use
financial surpluses in unrelated goals. Therefore, any such financial
availability would be devoted to promotion of its core goal: promoting the
Catalan communication space on the Internet. Projects that would obtain support
in that event would be, for instance, development of open source,
cross-platform, dictionaries and language correction tools or automated
translation services.

B. Protect the rights of others
Protecting the Rights of Others
 
 Abusive registrations within sTLDs are far less likely than within gTLDs. 
 For one thing, the very nature of a sTLD is to establish criteria as to who 
 can register a domain and who cannot. The very existence of such “border 
 controls”, so to speak, make abusive registrations less attractive, as the 
 speculative value of the domain is diminished by those controls, and 
 because the much lower ability to confuse anyone in a community-specific 
 domain.  To put this in context, the conflicts with third parties within 
 the three current sTLDs has been non-existent, to our knowledge. In any 
 case, no single Decision under their respective Charter Dispute Resolution 
 Policy (or Eligibility DRP at that) seems to have been issued.  Indeed, 
 Name value as well as the specific focusing to a given community diminishes 
 the attractiveness of abusive registrations of sTLDs.
 
 Even so, we propose a wide array of effective safeguards in order to 
 protect third-party rights. They are based on the following policies and 
 practices:
 
 - Eligibility-Compliant Registration Procedure
 - Charter Compliance Policy (See below, C)
 - Charter Eligibility Dispute Resolution Policy
 - Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP)
 - Compliance Reconsideration Policy
 - Mediation procedure
 (See below under D for the last four mechanisms)
 
 In addition to the above-mentioned standing procedures, two specific 
 mechanisms for the initial Start-up period would be provided:
 
 - Special provisions for Start-up Period
 - Defensive Registrations procedure
 
Eligibility-Compliant Registration Procedure
 
 This Procedure is designed to ensure that non-compliant applicants 
 (non-members of the relevant Community) cannot register domain names with 
 this TLD. In order to achieve such a goal, puntCAT will check each 
 application in order to ensure the fulfillment of a series of criteria, 
 both with automated and manual processes. Only when the relevant criteria 
 are met, the Sponsor will activate the domain name in order for it to be 
 operative. This is what in the context of this application is referred to 
 as Eligibility and Name Selection services (ENS).
 
 The Registration Procedure will require two main elements (besides, indeed, 
 the canonical registration data, regarding name, different contacts, 
 nameservers, etc.).
 Declaration and Intent of Use
 On one hand, the Registration Agreement will contain a declaration form 
 where the Applicant shall expressly declare its identity and belonging to 
 the Community as well as a statement on how the domain name will be used. 
 As explained below, failure to provide true information by the Applicant 
 will be considered as a cause of cancellation of the domain name, as it 
 could be a use diverse from the one declared.
 
 Such declarations will be stored and publicly available. Domain name 
 holders will be able to update/modify them.
 Identification as member of the Community
 On the other hand, the Sponsor shall verify the identity of the applicant 
 and the compliance of the eligibility requirements prior to the activation 
 of the domain name by three different means:
 
1. Requesting the corresponding documentation.
 For certain categories of users, well-established lists do exist (be that 
 professional or public registries; professional guilds or membership of 
 certain associations or Federations).  The categories puntCAT has already 
 identified include:
 
 - Universities or other academic entities that promote the Catalan language 
  and/or culture. For instance, by means of specific departments, Chairs, 
  Degrees, or courses.
 - Publishing companies that publish works in the Catalan language or 
  relating to the Catalan culture.
 - Media/communication entities that use the Catalan language.
 - Public or private entities whose aim is promoting the Catalan culture.
 
 A list of required documentation for each of the above-mentioned categories 
 (and others which are currently being elaborated within the Associació 
 puntCAT) will be prepared and posted. Examples would be being a member of 
 the Catalan Publishing Association or a member of the Guild of Writers in 
 Catalan language (the Catalan section of the PEN Club, for example), or the 
 Association of Catalan Cultural Centers in any of the different regions 
 where they exist. The space allocated in this application form is not 
 enough to provide all the possible examples. As pointed out, previously 
 puntCAT will individually check each application before activating the 
 requested domain name.
 
 Please note that belonging to the above-mentioned categories is not enough 
 at this stage. The prospective registrant will need to identify effective 
 inclusion in one of those lists used by the Sponsor for ENS purposes. In 
 case it is not, the applicant will need to go to use any of the other two 
 mechanisms described below.
 
 It should also be noted that in fact many of these lists/registries are 
 maintained by entities which are already members of the Associació puntCAT 
 (and many others will come shortly on board), so obtaining them and 
 performing the relevant checks will not be a big challenge for the Sponsor.
 
2. Proof of actual use of Catalan language in online communications.
 
 Entities or professionals who already use the Catalan language to 
 communicate with their users and customers will be able to point to those 
 existing services as a proof of their eligibility. As of now, running web 
 pages or a mailing list would be accepted, but not showing simple mail 
 exchanges.
 
3. Proof by Reference
 
 But there is still a long part of the community who does not fit within the 
 previous criteria, but who clearly would qualify as a member of the Catalan 
 linguistic and cultural community. Take any of the individuals representing 
 the current 67 members of Associació puntCAT, for instance. We belong to 
 that Community, and we want to use the proposed TLD as (one of) our 
 Internet identifiers. “Community” is precisely the operative word here, and 
 the third criteria is precisely proof of belonging to a Community by 
 reference of other members of that social network, of that Community.
 
 In those cases, besides the always-required Declaration and Intent of Use 
 referred to above, the applicant would need to provide a number of 
 references of actual members of the Community (and already .cat registrants 
 themselves). The reference will come in form of email address. Our ENS 
 system will generate an automatic email requesting confirmation, and the 
 domain would not be activated until such time the confirmation arrives.
 
 In case of the reference being one entity in the category listed at #1. 
 above, one single mail would suffice. In this case, for instance, a 
 University using Catalan as one of its teaching courses could, if so they 
 wish, reference (sponsor) its professors and researchers. Or a newspaper, 
 its subscribers.
 
 In case the applicant cannot get introduced to the rest of the Community 
 (namely, to the Sponsoring Organization, puntCAT) by those members of the 
 categories at #1. above, (those on established lists and registries) then 
 three names (and mail addresses) of three different current registrants 
 would be required.
 
 We have discussed and designed with CORE, our Registry Operator, a system 
 for handling this procedure. Indeed, references and mail addresses would be 
 kept by the Sponsor, but not made public under any circumstance other than 
 challenges under the CEDRP discussed below, and only to the panelist.
 
 The current members of the Association, as well as those who will join in 
 the near future, are committed to cooperate with such a procedure. This is 
 what social networking, and communities are about, and there is no-best 
 proof of belonging to one than precisely being identified by other members.
 
 Obviously, all registration procedures will be based on "first come, first 
 served" criteria, provided that the eligibility requirements are met 
 (checking sufficient right, instead of establishing better right). We will 
 only provide for a limited-time prior right of entry to certain categories 
 during the initial launch of the TLD.

C. Assurance of charter-compliant registrations and avoidance of abusive registration practices
Charter Compliance

 Guaranteeing that the .cat names are only registered by members of the 
 Community is one of the main concerns of puntCAT, and one of the main 
 duties of a Sponsoring Organization. Thus, a Charter Compliance Policy 
 shall be adopted in order to grant that all the registrants of domain names 
 do fulfill the requirements set out by the Charter.
 
 In accordance to this Policy, puntCAT will verify whether the declaration 
 made by the registrant when registering the domain name at issue contains 
 inaccurate or false information about the registrant's identity or 
 he/she/it does not actually fulfill the requirements set out by the 
 Charter. In case puntCAT does find out that the registrant does not comply 
 with Charter, it shall not register the domain name and, if it is already 
 registered, it shall be cancelled.
 
 Moreover, in accordance with this policy, puntCAT will verify the 
 conformity of the use given to the domain name by its registrant vis-à-vis 
 the Intent of Use declared at the moment of the registration (or modified 
 thereafter). Should said use be different to the one publicly stated, the 
 domain name will be put on registry hold (no resolution).
 
 In order to verify the information provided by the registrant when applying 
 for the domain name, puntCAT shall be entitled to request supplementary 
 information from the registrant.
 
 Said verifications will be made daily and on a random basis by puntCAT or 
 as a consequence of the filing of a complaint by a member of the Community. 
 The complaint form will be available on the registry site, and the 
 procedure will be at no cost to the complainant.
 
 puntCAT provides this service at its own cost as it is clearly critical for 
 the rest of the Internet users that no sTLD becomes a de facto, disguised, 
 open and generic TLD.
 
 In order to finance both this service and the initial registration checks, 
 the .cat registrants will pay an initial registration fee plus an ENS fee 
 (in our current proposal, twice as much as the price of registration) when 
 first registering the domain. On successive years, the renewal fee would 
 not be accompanied of that ENS fee.
 
 Apart from the above-described standing procedures, we will provide two 
 further specific set of provisions related to the TLD launching period.
 Special provisions for the Start-up period
  puntCAT will implement a Start-up Period to allow certain members of the 
 Community to register domain names corresponding to their registered 
 trademarks, commercial names, entity names or well-established names before 
 the general launching of the .cat TLD.
 
 Such a Start up Period shall be divided in two phases. During a first phase 
 (three months), the registration of domain names will be available for 
 those members of the Community included in pre-existing available 
 registries that are professionally linked to the promotion of the Catalan 
 culture or language. These entities are the same as in group #1. above 
 (Universities and academic institutions, publishing companies and writers, 
 media; as well as public or private entities whose main aim is promoting 
 the Catalan language and/or culture).
 
 Once the first phase is over, a second one will be open (two months) to all 
 categories but individuals (where the likelihood of conflicts is 
 statistically much higher). In both phases, the Registry will verify the 
 identity of the applicant and the evidences filed in order to prove its 
 belonging to the Community.
 
 From that point on, the registration will be open to all qualifying 
 registrants. puntCAT would reserve the right to delay the opening for one 
 further month in case the (very unlikely) accumulation of conflicts 
 (complaints) arising from the registrations required some extra time to be 
 sorted out.

Defensive Registrations
 
 This procedure has been offered by other TLDs in their initial phase. It is 
 designed to provide for specific protection to registered-trademark 
 holders. puntCAT does not believe that such a mechanism is required for a 
 sTLD, as the main protection against trademark dilution steams precisely 
 from the strict character of the eligibility criteria, and, in addition, 
 from the Compliance Procedure, which will allow easy and fast challenges to 
 non-compliant registrations at no cost.
 
 Nevertheless, puntCAT will implement a special Defensive Registrations 
 window to allow registered trademark holders who do not comply with the 
 eligibility criteria and do not belong to the Sponsored Community to submit 
 a request to block the domain names consisting on its trademark (literal 
 and exact content). Registered trademark holders shall provide with 
 documental evidence of such registration in any jurisdiction and pay the 
 corresponding fee (which is indeed higher than the regular registration 
 fee). Such a Defensive Registration (excluding a matching registration) 
 will be valid for one year (renewable).
 
 Furthermore, if later on the titleholder of a defensive registration 
 becomes eligible under the .cat Charter, and wants to register the domain, 
 it could be activated by applying through one of the registration 
 procedures described above.
 
 As stated above, in addition to the registration procedures, puntCAT will 
 develop and apply several policies in order to grant the protection of 
 third-parties' rights. Said policies are described in detail in Part D 
 (Charter Eligibility Dispute Resolution Policy, UDRP, Compliance 
 Reconsideration Policy and the Mediation Procedure).

D. Assurance of adequate dispute-resolution mechanisms
puntCAT does foresee the adoption of four  policies focused on the 
 resolution of any dispute that may arise from the registration and 
 ownership of the domain names. Said policies are the Charter Eligibility 
 Dispute Resolution Policy, and UDRP, now standard across gTLDs and sTLDs, 
 plus a specific Compliance Reconsideration Policy and a Mediation procedure.
 

1. Charter Eligibility Dispute Resolution Policy
 
 This policy is designed to allow any third party to challenge a 
 registration which is allegedly made in violation of the Eligibility 
 Charter. We want to underline that in fact the Registry assumes itself the 
 burden of what is commonly deemed to be the subject-matter of the CERDP 
 through the Charter Compliance Procedure described above. As already 
 stated, the Sponsor will not only run ex officio, random checks, but also 
 commit to dealing with all third-party complaints, and at no cost to the 
 challenger. Even so, for the seek of cross-sTLD coherence of the namespace, 
 we will certainly adhere to the CEDRP.
 
 Main features of such Policy are:
 - Any third party will be entitled to file a complaint based on this 
   policy before any of the accredited Dispute Resolution Provider, in 
   accordance to the rules that may be adopted regarding this policy, even if 
   she has previously filed a complaint under the Sponsor’s own Charter 
   Compliance Procedure.
 - Any domain name registered in infringement of this policy shall be 
   cancelled upon decision of the panel appointed by policy's solutions
provider.
 
 We request from ICANN a specific modification of the CEDRP for .cat in the 
 sense that when a challenger prevails and the name is canceled, the 
 challenger will, in case of being eligible for such name under the Charter, 
 have 21 days to proceed though the registration process for the challenged 
 name. In case of not succeeding in completing the registration for any 
 reason, including lack of eligibility, then the name would be deleted and 
 made available.
 

2. Compliance Reconsideration Policy (CRP)

 We propose to create the CRP as a mechanism for appealing against a 
 decision issued by puntCAT pursuant to the Charter Compliance Policy, 
 described above, ie, when the Sponsor would put a domain name on hold or 
 delete it because of failure to comply with the complete eligibility 
 requirements
 The main features of this proposed Policy will be:
 - Any registrant whose domain name has been deleted or put on Registry-hold 
 by puntCAT through the Charter Compliance Procedure (either following a 
 third-party complaint, or ex officio by the Sponsor) or whose registration 
 has been initially refused is entitled to challenge such decision before 
 any accredited Dispute Resolution Provider.
 - If the panel finds that the registrant was in compliance with the 
 Charter, an order will be issued to the sponsor so as to restore the 
 functionality of the domain name in question (The announcement of a 
 Challenge will have the effect of keeping registrations provisionally on 
 hold, even if they were rejected prima facie under ENS scrutiny by puntCAT).
 

3. Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy
 
 All registrants under .cat will abide to the UDRP as approved by ICANN, 
 through the usual provisions included in the Registrant Agreement, and the 
 Registry-Registrar Agreement.
 
 Accredited registrars shall commit themselves to fulfill the 
 above-mentioned policies, as well as to expressly accept them by their 
 registrant (by means of including them in the corresponding registration 
 agreements).
  
 Both CEDRP and UDRP will be managed by those dispute resolution providers 
 accredited by ICANN.  As for CRP, we propose the specific accreditation of 
 IQUA, Internet Quality Agency (http://www.iqua.net). IQUA is an initiative 
 of some independent regulatory authorities for broadcasting and electronic 
 communications, with the participation of many different actors from both 
 the public and private sector in order to promote self-regulation as a 
 means of improving the quality of Internet experience, both from technical 
 service, service and content perspectives. They promote quality seals, 
 codes of conduct and alternative dispute resolution. Even if their scope is 
 global, some of their founding members are independent broadcasting 
 authorities from different areas of the Catalan linguistic domain (while 
 others are from different parts of Spain; and private members come from a 
 wide spectrum of places and professional fields).
 
 We have been working with IQUA in order to implement such a CRP but also a 
 Code of Conduct for .cat domain-name holders and, as stated below, a 
 Mediation procedure.
 

4. Mediation
 
 Finally, we will also propose a Mediation procedure, also managed by IQUA, 
 related to the conflicts among members of the Community regarding their 
 respective expectations towards the registration of the same domain name. 
 We consider that many conflicts among members of the Community could be 
 solved if such a Mediation procedure was available. Indeed, belonging to a 
 same community could be a key issue for solving said conflicts as a common 
 set of rules of conduct would establish the basic criteria for finding a 
 solution for this type of conflicts.

E. Provision of ICANN-policy compliant WHOIS service
PuntCat will provide a Whois service fully compliant with ICANN polices and up
to the highest technical standards. For the details regarding the concrete
operation of the whois and the allocation of resources, please refer to Part E
of this application (Technical Proposal).

Designing a new Whois service is a difficult task today. The ICANN community is
currently in midst of a though reformulation process, involving the Whois
purpose and the applicable policies. 

As already stated in this application (extent of policy delegation), puntCat
would like to submit several contributions to this debate. For instance, the
addition of special-purpose fields covering the Intent of Use. More
importantly, puntCat expresses reservations about uncontrolled access to port
43 Whois, and bulk Whois licensing. puntCat is also concerned with regard to
publication of personal data of registrant beyond what is strictly necessary.
Puntcat will actively and constructively contribute to this debate and abide by
ICANN policies or recommendation within the limit of applicable law.


© 2004 The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers