ICANN|ARCHIVES

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

.FAM gTLD: Expression of interest

Dear Sirs,

We herewith do express our strong interest in operating and sponsoring the registry for a possible new gTLD .FAM

Self description of .FAM Top Level Domain

.FAM Top Level Domain is a company primarily aiming at the promotion and operation of this new gTLD. We are currently in the process of formulating our business, marketing and financial plan and seeking for the necessary support (partners, bancs, government). The next step will be evaluating and eventually establishing the nessecary infrastructure to ensure the stable operation of a possible registry. Our present business location is at Tiefendorfergasse 7 /3, 1140 Vienna, Austria.

Purpose of .FAM gTL

Currently there is no TLD, that "really fits" for private users, the ccTLD are useable, but in many cases they are already registered (by commercial units). A lot of users are not merely interested in an isolated webpage on their very own account, but would prefer a network similar to the real lives "smallest cell of society", the family. The above mentioned possibility of utilising a ccTLD as well does not regard the fact, that many families do spread over various countries.

The .FAM gTLD should, according to our research, give individual families and their members the possibility to utilise the Internet for personal use. In addition, selected organisations and companies, which offer special services or goods for families (e.g. genealogy or family search) could be accepted as registrants. Therefore the gTLD should be of the restricted type ("chartered") to the above mentioned classes of users.

This could eventually lead to a whole new network of family related websites, where people could be enabled to find their relatives scattered over the whole planet and link them together closely. Or there might be for example an Internet Portal "www.Government.fam", which provides links to local family related governmental services and agencies.

An additional asset of the proposed .FAM gTLD is, that its meaning "family" is not only obvious for the english language, but for most western languages (e.g. danish, dutch, english, french, german, italian, norwegian, polish, portugues spanish, swedish, also africaans and various other european languages). This includes all users in both north and south america, western europe, australia and new zealand with their mother tounge, great parts of africa, where either english or french is the lingua franca in countries, that have any number between 5 and 500 different languages. In the other parts of the world, english is of course accepted as business and internet language.

Structure of .FAM gTLD

We propose a restricted, "chartered" gTLD mainly but not exclusively for private users. It should be organized with second-level Domain names, rather than subdomains.

Proposed Policies Outline

The intended Domain Name Policies could, in brief, be outlined as follows:

Registrants could be devided into two groups:

individuals applying for family names:

No person fitting in this group should be allowed to hold more than one Domain Name (as no individual can have more than one family name. Double names are regarded as single names in this respect).

Some kind of verification should be implied to make sure, the applying individual has a vital interest in the applied Domain Name (eg. he/she applies for his/her family name).

As a family name usually is not globally unique, applying individuals should be asked to include a hyperlink to the ".FAM Web Directory".

Any person, who finds his/her family name allready taken, could activate a hyperlink in the ".FAM Web Directory".

Anyone applying for another second level domain name under the .FAM TLD than his/her family name.

If the SLD implies global relevance, the registrant needs to prove his/her global interest in the SLD (eg. "www.government.fam" should not be registered by a single national or regional government agency, but rather by someone who provides world wide information about family related government agencies).

The ".FAM Web Directory" would be a Database extension to the Domain Name Service. Everyone would be allowed and enabled to enter one hyperlink to his/her family homepage under a certain, already taken Family Domain Name. This would eventually allow families to locate relatives.

We are looking forward to submit our formal application in full detail for the proposed .FAM TDL to you as soon as possible after the process of how to do so is posted on your website.

Kind regards

.FAM Top Level Domain

Rdiger F. Schultz CEO