| gTLD | Full Legal Name | E-mail suffix | Detail | | .ril | Reliance Industries Limited | ril.com | View |
India has the second largest mobile user base in the world, next only to China. It also has the third largest Internet user base, after China & USA. But, currently India has only 10.2% Internet penetration. These two distinguished realities imply the fact there is tremendous opportunity that is well open for the future Internet market in India.
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) wants to use this opportunity of owning “.RIL” gTLD to establish itself as a company which is at the forefront of Internet revolutions in the world and is aiming to bring the same to India. “.RIL” gTLD will primarily be used for corporate communication and to offer the visitors one-stop-shop, to learn about Reliance, its different businesses and offerings in the B2B and B2C arena.
RIL owns hundreds of brands, of which many are truly iconic Indian brands such as “Reliance”, “Vimal”, and “Reliance Retail”. Other brands are leaders in their category such as “Sudz”, “Mopz” and so on. We also partner with many international brands and bring them to India such as “Marks & Spencer”, “Vision Express”, “Hamleys” and the likes. All these brands are currently under different TLDs such as “.com”, “.in’, “.co.in”, “.net” and so on. RIL aims to consolidate these brands under one gTLD and offer consumers a superior, consistence and unique experience across all the business, departments, offerings and products.
There will be multiple benefits of the same:
The customers will be able to easily find the product⁄service and brand they are looking for, since all will exist under the common gTLD. The consistent look & feel, and a unique and superior web experience will provide impetuousness to the customer to spend more time on the web site and to visit again, thus improving the state of the Internet in India.
RIL will be able to protect its brands from domain squatters, phishing attacks and other forms of Internet malware by having a complete control over the second level domains. This will further help customers find the correct domain and the right web site they are looking for. With the trusted brand name of Reliance acting as gTLD for the web sites will instil confidence in the customer to consume information and conduct transactions without fear of any foul play.
With all the brands, products and services under the same gTLD, RIL will be successfully able to track consumer’s actions and behaviour across the multiple second-level domains and provide services and products which offer more value to the consumer that interact with our various brands.
As mentioned above, RIL owns hundreds of brands and it is not always possible to acquire the suitable domain name due to rampant cybersquatting and the domain ownership in developed markets which had the first mover advantage. By owning its own gTLD, RIL will be able to consolidate all its brands, products, services, under a common umbrella and replicate its offline brand strategy and architecture in the online and digital world as well. This will help streamline marketing communication to our audiences and customers since the information and structure will be similar in offline and online world. Customers will also find it easier to access information and conduct business, be it on a pamphlet in a store or on a web page online, since the brand structure and marketing communication will be similar in nature.
With similar brand architecture in the online world as the offline world, it will be easier for RIL to run marketing activities and promotions via our retail stores and other join venture branded stores. These activities will be used to drive traffic to our web sites under “.RIL” gTLD. This will generate interest in the new and improved web sites and will also educate people about the new gTLD system. By integrating our social media strategies with the new gTLD system we will be able to rapidly spread the word about the new gTLD and drive more traffic to our web sites which in turn will increase our brand reach.
RIL owns one India’s largest organized retail chains under the brand name ‘Reliance Retail’, which offers its customers multiple products and services under different retail formats for all their shopping needs. RIL also has brand partnerships with many international brands that offer provide their services in India in partnership with RIL. Since each format and brand attracts a large number of customers, each will be given a second-level domain under the new “RIL” gTLD such as ‘www.fresh.RIL’,’ www.super.ril’, ’www.digital.ril’. This structure will help the customer to easily locate the right format that she is searching for and make the necessary purchase. Plus the confidence of the RIL brand name as the gTLD will serve as the guarantee of quality and service. A customer shopping across multiple formats will be easily tracked and will receive benefits in terms of discounts, coupons and exclusive offers. The customer will also benefit from the superior service and consistent experience across all the different format websites and offerings under the same gTLD. RIL will benefit from better cross-sells and increasing customer retention.
India has one of the highest mobile penetrations in the world. More people in India have a mobile phone than 24⁄7 running water. With huge demand comes plethora of suppliers and India has over 15 separate telecom providers, some of whom are active on a pan India basis and some are regional players. As RIL enters in the telecom⁄digital space with its pan India 4G network, the gTLD will provide it with much needed differentiation in the market. RIL will be able to offer its multitude of 4G services under a single umbrella of “.RIL” gTLD which is much more recognizable and has a higher recall than a “.com” or “.net” gTLD.
Due to the deluge of web sites and brands that are present in the Indian and the world market, superior and delightful customer experience is becoming an essential part of any brand’s offering that wants to stand out of the crowd. By combining all our business and their offerings under the common gTLD “.RIL”gTLD, the consumer will not need to step-out of “.RIL” gTLD for accessing any product or service offered by RIL. This will give us the opportunity to provide a consistent, clear and comprehensive customer experience across all the web sites under “.RIL”. This will be in-line with our efforts to set a new standard in online consumer experience across the globe.
Registry Policies
RIL’s registry policies are designed to follow the highest of standards and meet the criteria for global
operations.
As described above, “.RIL” gTLD will be used for RIL group of companies and will only be available to the registrants of RIL (including the Sunrise period).
In general, domains will be offered for periods of one to ten years, but no greater than ten years. Registrations made in the Sunrise period may have an established minimum number of required years.
The roll-out of our TLD is anticipated to feature the following phases:
Reservation of reserved names and premium names, which will be distributed through special mechanisms as is detailed in the policies for reserved names section below.
Sunrise period – This is the required period for trademark owners to secure their domains before availability to the general public. This phase will feature applications for domain strings, verification of trademarks via Trademark Clearinghouse and a trademark verification agent, auctions between qualified parties who wish to secure the same string, and a Trademark Claims Service.
General Availability period – In this period real-time registrations are made on a first-come first-served basis. Trademark Claims Service will be in use for the first 60 days of the general availability period. The registration of domain names in the “.RIL” gTLD will follow standard practices, procedures and policies, which including;
- Domain registration polices (for example, grace periods, transfer policies, etc.) are defined in response question 27 of the application for gTLD.
- Abuse prevention tools and policies, for example, measures to promote WHOIS accuracy and efforts to reduce Phishing and Pharming, are discussed in detail in our response 28 of the application for gTLD
- Rights protection mechanisms and dispute resolution mechanism policies (for example, UDRP, URS) are detailed in 29 of the application for gTLD
Other detailed policies for this domain include policies for reserved names
Reserved names
There are two categories of reserved names for this TLD: registry reserved names and premium names.
Registry reserved names
For registry reserved names we will reserve the following classes of domain names, which will not be made generally available to registrants either during the Sunrise period or any subsequent period:
- All of the reserved names required in Specification 5 of the new gTLD Registry Agreement
- The geographic names required in Specification 5 of the new gTLD Registry Agreement
- The registry operator’s own name and variations thereof, and registry operations names (such as registry.tld, and www.tld), for internal use
- Names related to ICANN and Internet standards bodies (iana.tld, ietf.tld, w3c.tld, etc.), for delegation of those names to the relevant organizations upon their request
- The list of reserved names will be published publicly before the Sunrise period begins, so that registrars and potential registrants will know which names have been set aside
Premium names
As mentioned above in purpose .RIL will be used for Reliance and its subsidiaries⁄departments. Although the policy for premium names is defined, the same will not be applicable due to the defined TLD purpose.
The registry will also designate a set of premium domain names, set aside for distribution via special mechanisms. The list of premium names will be published publicly before the Sunrise period begins, so that registrars and potential registrants will know that these names are not available. Premium names may be distributed via mechanisms such as requests for proposals, contests, direct sales, and auctions.
For the auctioning of premium names, we intend to contract with an established auction provider that has successfully conducted domain auctions. This will ensure that there is a tested, trustworthy technical platform for the auctions, auditable records, and reliable collection mechanisms. With our chosen auction provider, we will create and post policies and procedures that ensure clear, fair, and ethical auctions. As an example of such a policy, all employees of the registry operator and its contractors will be strictly prohibited from bidding in auctions for domains in the TLD. The auction rules will cover all possible scenarios, such as how domains will be awarded if the winning bidder does not make payment.
Privacy and confidential information protection
As per the New gTLD Registry Agreement, we will make domain contact data (and other fields) freely and publicly available via a Web-based WHOIS server. This default set of fields includes the mandatory publication of registrant data. Our Registry-Registrar Agreement will require that registrants consent to this publication.
We shall notify each of our registrars regarding the purposes for which data, about any identified or identifiable natural person (“Personal Data”) submitted to the Registry Operator by such registrar, is collected and used, and the intended recipients (or categories of recipients) of such Personal Data (the data in question is essentially the registrant and contact data required to be published in the WHOIS). We will require each registrar to obtain the consent of each registrant in the TLD for the collection and use of such Personal Data. The policies will be posted publicly on our TLD web site. As the registry operator, we shall not use or authorize the use of Personal Data in any way that is incompatible with the notice provided to registrars.
Our privacy and data use policies are as follows:
- As registry operator, we do not plan to sell bulk WHOIS data. We will not sell contact data in any way. We will not allow, enable, or otherwise support the transmission by e-mail, telephone, or facsimile of mass unsolicited, commercial advertising or solicitations
- DNS query data will never be sold in a way that is personally identifiable
- We may from time to time use the demographic data collected for statistical analysis, provided that this analysis does not disclose individual Personal Data and provided that such use is compatible with the notice provided to registrars regarding the purpose and procedures for such use
As the registry operator, we shall take significant steps to protect Personal Data collected from registrars from loss, misuse, unauthorized disclosure, alteration, or destruction. In our responses to Question 30 of the application for gTLD (“Security Policy”) and Question 38 of the application for gTLD (“Escrow”) we detail the security policies and procedures we will use to protect the registry system and the data contained therefrom from unauthorized access and loss.
Please see our response to Question 26 of the application for gTLD (“WHOIS”) regarding “searchable WHOIS” and rate-limiting. That section contains details about how we will limit the mining of WHOIS data by spammers and other parties who abuse access to the WHOIS.
In order to acquire and maintain accreditation for our TLD, we will require registrars to adhere to certain information technology policies designed to help protect registrant data. These will include standards for access to the registry system and password management protocols. Our response to Question 30 of the application for gTLD, “Security Policy” provides details of implementation.
We will allow the use of proxy and privacy services, which can protect the personal data of registrants from spammers and other parties that mine zone files and WHOIS data. We are aware that there are parties who may use privacy services to protect their free speech rights, or to avoid religious or political persecution.
| gTLD | Full Legal Name | E-mail suffix | Detail | | .indians | Reliance Industries Limited | ril.com | View |
India has the second largest mobile user base in the world, next only to China. It also has the third largest Internet user base, after China and USA. But currently India has only 10.2% internet penetration. These two distinguished realities imply the fact there is tremendous opportunity that is well open for the future Internet market in India.
We see dual benefits of “.INDIANS”. First, the emotional connect that it will provide the fans of Mumbai Indians by offering them a chance to have a TLD that is similar to that of their favourite cricketer, favourite cricket team and the players they idolize, thus instilling a sense of pride in them. Second, is the fact that every person will now have a chance to acquire an Internet identity that declares to the world their affinity and their passion for “.Indians”. This is not restricted to only people who are citizens of India or have an affinity to India, but to every community that can relate to the word ‘Indians’. Be it fans of Mumbai Indians, people of Indian origin, a product⁄service targeted at India, or just about anything that can be branded better or easily memorised with an “.Indian” TLD name.
Mumbai Indians has the largest internet following amongst all the 9 teams that are part of IPL. These fans are forever looking for ways to connect and proudly associate themselves with the team and the players. For instance, if the popular players have their own URLs with “.Indians” as the TLD, it will fuel the desire of fans to acquire one as well. India being the land of cricket, with one of the superstars part of the Mumbai Indian team, this can be a huge opportunity to advance the TLD and popularise owning domain names in India.
While India has shown immense growth in the Internet user base in the last 2-3 years, the same is yet to be seen in the Web presence and participation by way of having a website. However, the same has visibly changed in the last few years and India has grown its domain name market size from 1% to 3%. From this transformation, we interpret that the opportunity of new TLD, which will be relevant to the current environment, will also grow among both individuals and businesses across India.
India is estimated to have more than 27 million small and medium business (SMB) entities but only 2% or less have a web identity or a dedicated web site. Also, India has the second largest population in the world and also the third largest Internet community. These facts clearly indicate the immense opportunity there is for domain names, especially the ones which are relevant to the Indian context, such as “.Indians”. Being a late entrant in the domain name adoption market, people from India never had a true opportunity to own domain names that are relevant to them. Most of them were already subscribed to, and the ones that were available were too complex to have any traction or emotional connect. Hence, introducing “.Indians” as a TLD will make the ownership of a domain more attractive and will have an emotional connect with people, motivating them to invest and actively try to acquire them for their future web identity.
In India more than 50,000 new companies are registered every year. These companies add to millions of companies already operating in the market. The already large SMB segment with 35 million businesses is also growing at a rapid pace. Only a small fraction of these businesses have any online presence but with the Internet becoming the preferred medium to conduct business, this small fraction is poised to grow rapidly. The availability of a preferential TLD and second level domains within it will go a long way in motivating these businesses to adopt the internet and make it the medium of choice when conducting business.
By offering “.INDIANS” as a TLD to the market, we will provide the masses of India an opportunity acquire a desired domain name, which has relevance and provides a sense of pride. We assume that “.Indians” will initially be used by individuals and organizations to promote their content which directly relates to or sells to Indians. For instance, an organisation that is selling garments that are ethnically Indian, can now have a website that is named as “www.garments.indians”. This may or may not be owned by an Indian, but will imply the fact that this is a garment website that is dealing with Indian outfits. This will help them distinguish themselves from general corporate and marketing sites in other top level domains such as COM.
People will very quickly realize enormous economic, informational and other functional advantages of owning a domain name with “.INDIANS” as the TLD. Some of the examples are:
Sports – Different sports organization at national, state and city levels could popularize their sport and their club⁄⁄organization by associating themselves with “.Indians” TLD. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) could adopt ‘www.cricket.indians’, the hockey association could adopt ‘www.hockey.indians’ and so on. This will bring immense visibility to those sports that are not so popular or are ignored by the community due to lack of information and opportunity.
Tourism – Indian tourist destinations can better market themselves globally as a tourist destination by owning a domain name with “.Indians” as the TLD. For instance websites such as ‘www.incredible.indians’, ‘www.spritualtour.indians’, ‘www.yogatours.indians’, ‘www.ayurvedatour.indians’ and others. “.INDIANS” can very effectively develop into the de-facto standard for all things ‘Indian’ and be a strong force in improving the global identity of the India in the tourism sector.
Education - India has been the popular educational hub for many developing countries especially Africa. Now as part of the promotions there can be ‘www.education.indians’, ‘www.engineeringcolleges.indians’, ‘www.medicalcolleges.indians’ and so on. This will make the information easily and readily accessible to the public and offer new and innovative courses such as design, neuroscience to be noticed at par with other popular courses.
Corporates and Multinationals – India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world and the same is true for 1000s of large organizations that are fuelling this growth. It is difficult for these organizations, especially multinationals, to offer truly regional services and to market the same. With the opportunity to offer their services under “.Indians”, they can easily build a loyal customer base and create communities to propagate their product features which are specific to India.
Portals – Portals which offer directory services targeted to specific need and India will quickly emerge and offer focused search facilities such as ‘www.schools.indians’, ‘www.shops.indians’, ‘www.retails.indians’, ‘www.hotels.indians’ and ‘www.sports.indians’. These websites will further help propagate the “.Indians” TLD as most of the listed companies⁄entities will wish to own a domain with ‘.Indians’ as TLD to showcase their solidarity to India and align themselves with the portal.
Marketing advantages – We see a huge potential for every brand in India to own a ‘www.brand.Iindians’ domain for enhancing brand visibility. This will also help in creating a more positive user experience, by clearly articulating the fact that the organization is aligned to Indians and make an immediate connect to probable partners and customers.
We are sure that ‘.Indians’ will become a de-facto standard for anyone who wishes to do business with the Indian consumer. Owning a ‘.Indians’ brand will become a necessity rather than a choice and it will help India and Indians clearly mark a place for themselves in the Internet domain.
RIL’s registry policies are designed to follow the highest of standards that meet the criteria for global operations.
In general, domains will be offered for periods of one to ten years, but no greater than ten years. Registrations made in the Sunrise period may have an established minimum number of required years.
The roll-out of our TLD is anticipated to feature the following phases:
Reservation of reserved names and premium names, which will be distributed through special mechanisms as is detailed in the policies for reserved names section below.
Sunrise period – This is the required period for trademark owners to secure their domains before availability to the general public. This phase will feature applications for domain strings, verification of trademarks via Trademark Clearinghouse and a trademark verification agent, auctions between qualified parties who wish to secure the same string, and a Trademark Claims Service.
General Availability period – In this period real-time registrations are made on a first-come first-served basis. Trademark Claims Service will be in use for the first 60 days of the general availability period. The registration of domain names in the “.INDIANS” gTLD will follow standard practices, procedures and policies, which including;
- Domain registration polices (for example, grace periods, transfer policies, etc.) are defined in response question 27 of the application for gTLD.
- Abuse prevention tools and policies, for example, measures to promote WHOIS accuracy and efforts to reduce Phishing and Pharming, are discussed in detail in our response 28 of the application for gTLD.
- Rights protection mechanisms and dispute resolution mechanism policies (for example, UDRP, URS) are detailed in 29 of the application for gTLD.
Other detailed policies for this domain include policies for reserved names
Reserved names
There are two categories of reserved names for this TLD: registry reserved names and premium names.
Registry reserved names
For registry reserved names we will reserve the following classes of domain names, which will not be made generally available to registrants either during the Sunrise period or any subsequent period:
- All of the reserved names required in Specification 5 of the new gTLD Registry Agreement
- The geographic names required in Specification 5 of the new gTLD Registry Agreement
- The registry operator’s own name and variations thereof, and registry operations names (such as registry.tld, and www.tld), for internal use
- Names related to ICANN and Internet standards bodies (iana.tld, ietf.tld, w3c.tld, etc.), for delegation of those names to the relevant organizations upon their request
- The list of reserved names will be published publicly before the Sunrise period begins, so that registrars and potential registrants will know which names have been set aside
Premium names
The registry will also designate a set of premium domain names, set aside for distribution via special mechanisms. The list of premium names will be published publicly before the Sunrise period begins, so that registrars and potential registrants will know that these names are not available. Premium names may be distributed via mechanisms such as requests for proposals, contests, direct sales, and auctions.
For the auctioning of premium names, we intend to contract with an established auction provider that has successfully conducted domain auctions. This will ensure that there is a tested, trustworthy technical platform for the auctions, auditable records, and reliable collection mechanisms. With our chosen auction provider, we will create and post policies and procedures that ensure clear, fair, and ethical auctions. As an example of such a policy, all employees of the registry operator and its contractors will be strictly prohibited from bidding in auctions for domains in the TLD. The auction rules will cover all possible scenarios, such as how domains will be awarded if the winning bidder does not make payment.
Privacy and confidential information protection
As per the New gTLD Registry Agreement, we will make domain contact data (and other fields) freely and publicly available via a Web-based WHOIS server. This default set of fields includes the mandatory publication of registrant data. Our Registry-Registrar Agreement will require that registrants consent to this publication.
We shall notify each of our registrars regarding the purposes for which data, about any identified or identifiable natural person (“Personal Data”) submitted to the Registry Operator by such registrar, is collected and used, and the intended recipients (or categories of recipients) of such Personal Data (the data in question is essentially the registrant and contact data required to be published in the WHOIS). We will require each registrar to obtain the consent of each registrant in the TLD for the collection and use of such Personal Data. The policies will be posted publicly on our TLD web site. As the registry operator, we shall not use or authorize the use of Personal Data in any way that is incompatible with the notice provided to registrars.
Our privacy and data use policies are as follows:
- As registry operator, we do not plan to sell bulk WHOIS data. We will not sell contact data in any way. We will not allow, enable, or otherwise support the transmission by e-mail, telephone, or facsimile of mass unsolicited, commercial advertising or solicitations
- DNS query data will never be sold in a way that is personally identifiable
- We may from time to time use the demographic data collected for statistical analysis, provided that this analysis does not disclose individual Personal Data and provided that such use is compatible with the notice provided to registrars regarding the purpose and procedures for such use
As the registry operator, we shall take significant steps to protect Personal Data collected from registrars from loss, misuse, unauthorized disclosure, alteration, or destruction. In our responses to Question 30 of the application for gTLD (“Security Policy”) and Question 38 of the application for gTLD (“Escrow”) we detail the security policies and procedures we will use to protect the registry system and the data contained therefrom from unauthorized access and loss.
Please see our response to Question 26 of the application for gTLD (“WHOIS”) regarding “searchable WHOIS” and rate-limiting. That section contains details about how we will limit the mining of WHOIS data by spammers and other parties who abuse access to the WHOIS.
In order to acquire and maintain accreditation for our TLD, we will require registrars to adhere to certain information technology policies designed to help protect registrant data. These will include standards for access to the registry system and password management protocols. Our response to Question 30 of the application for gTLD, “Security Policy” provides details of implementation.
We will allow the use of proxy and privacy services, which can protect the personal data of registrants from spammers and other parties that mine zone files and WHOIS data. We are aware that there are parties who may use privacy services to protect their free speech rights, or to avoid religious or political persecution.