gTLD	Full Legal Name	E-mail suffix	Detail
.chat	dot Chat Limited	famousfourmedia.com	View

Q18C
What operating rules will you adopt to eliminate or minimize social costs (e.g., time or financial resource costs, as well as various types of consumer vulnerabilities)? What other steps will you take to minimize negative consequences⁄costs imposed upon consumers?

The Applicant fully appreciates the concerns of ICANN, the GAC and other consumer protection authorities about the need to operate new gTLDs in ways that minimize social costs, consumer vulnerabilities as well as other time and financial resource costs. To achieve these goals this gTLD will not only employ the ICANN mandated minimum protections, but will also deploy the following innovative protection measures that will put the gTLD at the forefront of addressing these critical issues:

1) Abuse Prevention and Mitigation Policies and Procedures

The Applicant’s core mission and purpose is to create an environment where individuals and companies can interact and express themselves in ways never before seen on the Internet, in a more targeted, secure and stable environment. To achieve this goal the Applicant will be implementing a range of Abuse Prevention and Mitigation (ʺAPMʺ) policies and procedures.

These Policies and Procedures will include: 1) gTLD APM Plan, 2) Policies and Procedures to Minimize Abusive Registrations ,3) Abuse Point of Contact, 4) Policies for Handling Complaints Regarding the Abuse Policies, 5) Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”), 6) Proposed Measures for Removal of Orphan Glue Records, 7) Resourcing plans for the initial implementation of, and ongoing maintenance of, the APM initiatives, 8) Registry semi-annual WHOIS verification, 9) Regular monitoring of WHOIS registration data for accuracy and completeness, 10) Registrar WHOIS self-certification, 11) WHOIS data reminder process, 12) Establishing policies and procedures to ensure Registrar compliance, which may include audits, financial incentives, penalties, or other means, 13) Registrar verification of WHOIS, 14) Abuse Response Process, 15) Policies and procedures that define malicious or abusive behaviour, 16) Service Level Requirements for resolution regarding APM issues, 17) Service Level Requirements for Law enforcement requests regarding APM issues, 18) Coordination of APM efforts with sector Groups and Law Enforcement, 19) Rapid takedown and suspension, 20) Controls to Ensure Proper Access to Domain Functions, 21) Enabling two-factor authentication from Registrants to process update, transfers, and deletion requests, 22) Enabling multiple, unique points of contact to request and⁄or approve update, transfer, and deletion requests, 23) Enabling the notification of multiple, unique points of contact when a domain has been updated, transferred, or deleted, 24) Additional Mechanism for Protection of Capital City Names, 25) Additional Mechanisms to Protect and Reserve IGO Names, 26) Governance Council Structure, 27) Efforts to increase Registrant Security Awareness, 28) Registrant Disqualification, 29) Restrictions on Proxy Registration Services, 30) Registry Lock. (Q28 for detail)

2) Rights Protection Mechanisms

The Applicant is firmly committed to the protection of Intellectual Property rights and to implementing all the mandatory Rights Protection Mechanisms (“RPMs”) contained in the Applicant Guidebook and detailed in Specification 7 of the Registry Agreement. Use of domain names that infringe upon the legal rights of others in the gTLD will not be tolerated and preventing abusive registrations is a core objective of the Applicant. The nature of such uses creates security and stability issues for the Registry, Registrars, and Registrants, as well as for users of the Internet in general. The Applicant will minimize time or financial resources costs by preventing abusive registrations and reduce opportunities for behaviours such as phishing or pharming. This will be achieved by implementing comprehensive registration, anti-abuse, and rights protection guidelines as defined in its AUP, as well as innovative additional RPMs such as the Mechanism to Protect IGO Names by blocking second level labels currently present in the .int zone file and the Mechanism for Further Protection of Capital City Names, as described below. In order to identify and address the abusive use of registered names on an ongoing basis, the Applicant will also incorporate and abide by the following RPMs and all other RPMs as specified in Specification 7 of the Registry Agreement and as adopted by the ICANN Board of Directors as ICANN Consensus Policies.

These Rights Protection Mechanisms will among other things include: 1) Trademark Clearinghouse, 2) Applicant’s Sunrise Period, 3) Trademark Claims Service , 4) Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, 5) Uniform Rapid Suspension System, 6) Trademark Post-Delegation Dispute Resolution Procedure, 7) Mechanism to protect IGO Names, 8) Mechanism for Further Protection of Capital City Names, 9) Efforts to promote WHOIS Accuracy, 10) Thick Searchable WHOIS, 11) Semi Annual Audits to Ensure Accurate WHOIS, 12) Policies Handling Complaints Regarding Abuse and Rights Issues, 13) Registry Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”), 14) Monitoring for Malicious Activity. (Q29 for detail)

3) Governance Council Structure

The Applicant believes that sector stakeholders should be afforded the opportunity to influence the manner in which the gTLD is governed. Accordingly, the Applicant will establish a Governance Council (the “GC”) comprised of key sector stakeholders that will serve as an advisory body tasked with defining best practice recommendations for the gTLD space. The Applicant believes that the success of the gTLD will be determined largely by the sector’s key stakeholders. Not only will these stakeholders have the primary interest in registering domains in the gTLD, but they will also be motivated to protect the sector from practices that would negatively impact the sector overall. The GC exists to provide guidance on matters related to best practices, intellectual property, authentication, certification, and other matters of importance to the sector and it will elect its own Board of Directors, which will be responsible for self-governance, the recommendation of sector-specific policies, and other best practices related to the gTLD.

4) BITS and Coalition for Online Accountability (“COA”) Recommendations

The Applicant will further structure its policies around the BITS and COA Recommendations where relevant to this gTLD. The Applicant’s goal is to provide a safe and secure experience for consumers. A domain within this gTLD that is owned, operated by or compromised by a malicious party could cause harm to consumers, to the gTLDʹs reputation and to the reputation of the Internet itself. As such, additional controls are in place relating to the validity of registrations, as well as measures to ensure the correct identity of both Registrants and Registrars relating to changes made within the SRS, and to protecting the integrity of the DNS service as a whole.

The Security Standards Working Group (SSWG) formed by BITS drafted a set of policy recommendations that should be applied to financial TLDs. The policy comprises of a set of 31 recommendations that should be adopted by ICANN in evaluating any applicant of a financial gTLD. The recommendations were posted by BITS in the form of a letter to ICANN at [http:⁄⁄www.icann.org⁄en⁄correspondence⁄aba-bits-to-beckstrom-crocker-20dec11-en.pdf].

The Coalition for Online Accountability have drafted a set of policy recommendations, also endorsed by many other international organizations representing the creative industries, that should be applied to entertainment gTLDs - especially those dependent on copyright protection. The policy comprises of a set of 7 recommendations that should be adopted by ICANN in evaluating any applicant for an entertainment-based gTLD. The recommendations were posted by COA in the form of a letter to ICANN at http:⁄⁄bit.ly⁄HuHtmq.

We welcome the recommendations from BITS and the COA and will strongly consider the recommendations relating to the implementation of this gTLD where considered relevant.

5) Registry Operators Startup Plan

The Applicant proposes to implement the following start-up plan so that the new gTLD is introduced in an orderly, transparent and stable manner. This will safeguard competition, fairness, trust and reliability for Registrants, the User Community, ICANN Accredited Registrars, and other Stakeholders.
The Applicant’s startup plan is designed to minimize social costs (e.g., time or financial resources costs, as well as various types of consumer vulnerabilities) by instilling a number of RPMs as well as APMs.
The plan consists of the following multi-phase process that will be executed by the Registry Operator. The timeline for the gTLDs start-up process and associated RPMs in the Applicants gTLD is as follows:

Phase 1 – Sunrise Process:

- Day 1: Sunrise round opens
- Day 60: Sunrise round Closes
- Day 61: Sunrise Allocation Including contention resolution mechanisms opens
- Day 71: Sunrise Allocation contention resolution mechanisms closes

• The following Rights Protection Mechanisms apply:
a. Trademark Clearinghouse (“TMCH”)
b. Sunrise Eligibility Requirements (“SER”)
c. Sunrise Dispute Resolution Policy (“SDRP”)
d. Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (“UDRP”)
e. Uniform Rapid Suspension System (ʺURSʺ)
f. Mechanism for the Protection of IGO Names (“PIN”)
g. Trademark Claims Service (“TCS”) *

Phase 2 – Landrush process:

- Day 72: Landrush opens
- Day 102: Landrush closes
- Day 103: Landrush contention resolution mechanisms opens
- Day 113: Landrush contention resolution mechanisms closes

- The following Rights Protection Mechanisms apply:

a. UDRP
b. URS
c. PIN
d. Mechanism for Further Protection of Capital City Names (“CCC”)
e. TCS *

Phase 3 – General Availability⁄Registrations:

- Day 114: General availability begins

- The following Rights Protection Mechanisms apply:

a. UDRP
b. URS
c. PIN
d. Trademark Post-Delegation Dispute Resolution Procedure (“PDDRP”)
e. TCS for the 90 days after day 114 *

* To ease the concerns of trademark owners and mitigate the impact of infringing registrations, the Applicant will be implementing the TCS in all three phases of launch. It is important to note that during the General Availability Phase, the TCS will be used for 90 days, 30 days longer than the ICANN mandated minimum.

18(C)(i) How will multiple applications for a particular domain name be resolved, for example, by auction or on a first-come⁄first-serve basis?

Sunrise and Landrush periods:

During the gTLDs launch period, multiple applications for a particular domain name will be resolved through a Contention Resolution Mechanism (“CRM”) involving auctions. These CRMs will apply to the Sunrise and Landrush application phases. The CRMs will be conducted by Sedo GMBH, an experienced provider of domain auction services. The mechanisms offered will involve closed auctions where only specific bidders can participate.

During the Applicants Sunrise process, if there are two or more eligible applicants for one domain name string, then the contention will be resolved by auction. Auctions held during the Sunrise phase (“Sunrise Auctions”) will be closed and the only bidders will be eligible applicants according to the gTLDs Sunrise eligibility requirements including the TMCH.

During the Applicants Landrush process, if there are two or more eligible applicants for one domain name string, then the contention will be resolved by auction. Auctions held during the Landrush phase (“Landrush Auctions”) will be closed and the only bidders will be eligible applicants according to the gTLDs Landrush eligibility requirements.

General Availability:

After the two initial startup phases of the Registry the allocation of domain names will occur on a first-come first-serve basis, taking into account the registries APM and RPM mechanisms.

18(c)(ii) Explain any cost benefits for registrants you intend to implement (e.g., advantageous pricing, introductory discounts, bulk registration discounts).

Incentive, Marketing and Outreach Programs

The Applicant will implement a number of incentive, marketing assistance, awareness and PR programs to assist the Registrar channel in providing a sector leading experience to end-users and to provide cost benefits for registrants. The Applicant will work with the global Registrar channel to ensure that the new gTLD offer is clearly visible on registrar sites resulting in an increase in the awareness and in the number of new gTLD registrations. Achieving this visibility requires (1) a clear business case and incentives for registrars to motivate them and (2) mechanisms and assets to make it easy for them to do so.

The Applicant will at the time of launch depending upon market conditions consider incentive programs that will deliver cost benefits to registrants through either the use of advantageous pricing, introductory discounts, bulk registration discounts or other similar methods. The Applicant is aware of Specification 9 – Registry Operator Code of Conduct, and will not directly or indirectly show any preference or provide any special consideration to any Registrar in its marketing efforts.

Example incentive mechanisms the Applicant will provide to the registrars may include:

Marketing Incentives

The Applicant intends to provide expertise, tools and creative assets to the registrars as part of general marketing and co-marketing programs. There is a significant cost saving if the expertise, tools and assets are developed centrally and the costs amortized across the registrar base. Significant cost savings can occur relating to Market Research, Social Customer Relationship Management (“SCRM”), Content Management Systems (“CMS”), Direct Marketing Tools, Marketing Collateral and Analytics Solutions.

The Applicant will employ some or all of the following marketing techniques jointly with registrars globally: (1) Direct Response Print, (2) General Web Marketing, (3) Email campaigns without Incentive, (4) Email with Incentive, (5) Email Marketing - Prospect List, (6) Email Marketing - Sponsored Newsletter, (7) Direct Marketing with Incentive, (8) Web Marketing with Incentive, (9) Viral Marketing (Social, Video, Micro-sites), (10) Develop User Interface Improvement best practices, (11) Develop Search Engine Optimization best practices, (12) Email Marketing - Registrar List
As an example of a marketing initiative, the Applicant will forward leads to the Registrars “buy” pages as an incentive via the means of Pay-Per-Click (“PPC”) search marketing. The Applicant will run multiple PPC campaigns targeting gTLD Registrants and point these to landing pages on the Registrar’s websites. Conversions are directly trackable from all PPC campaigns and keywords with a high Click-Through-Rate (“CTR”) or conversions will also be leveraged for SEO best practice purposes.

PR and Awareness Incentives:

In addition to the core outreach to the Registrar Channel, the Applicant will engage in a wider outreach to build awareness of the new gTLD with customers, end-users and other stakeholders. The Applicant will engage with a number of high profile individuals associated with the gTLD and will seek to reach end consumers through webcasts, podcasts, traditional broadcast TV as well as radio.

Provision of customer retention toolkits to Registrars:

The Applicant will use propensity modelling to build retention marketing programs to minimize churn whilst building renewal sustainability. The Applicant will develop econometric models designed to measure the likelihood of a customer segment to purchase a product or offer bundle, at a certain point in the relationship lifecycle. They are used to predict the best time, and the best combination of products, to offer to customers who match a certain profile. They are especially effective where there are large numbers of customers and reliable data can be gathered. The Applicant expects that registration volume in the gTLD will provide sufficient data for this modelling.

Measure, benchmark and improve the customer experience:

The Applicant will engage in a program to develop best practice policies related to the customer experience at differing levels of the channel. This will include the entire ecosystem from Registry through Registrar to Resellers and finally end-users. One key metric might be, for example, to reduce the number of clicks to make a purchase equivalent to the most customer friendly e-commerce sites in the world.
The Applicant might, for example, provide website performance tracking tools to registrars, which would benchmark current performance and provide insights into customers’ needs and behaviour at the point of purchase.
The Applicant will engage in a Social Customer Relationship Management Program to monitor social media feedback to questions, concerns or other issues. The Applicant will further seek to measure marketing communication expenditure and activity.

Other initiatives that will be considered by the Applicant in its outreach efforts:

(a) Customized Vertical Search App for major mobile platforms.
(b) Designated Twitter channel for the stakeholder community.
(c) Social Media outreach through Facebook and other social media solutions.

Translation into other languages:

At present, the Applicant plans to translate marketing collateral and other content that it considers to have geographically diverse appeal in to the 6 official UN languages, namely Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, Russian and Spanish.

18(c)(iii) Note that the Registry Agreement requires that registrars be offered the option to obtain initial domain name registrations for periods of one to ten years at the discretion of the registrar, but no greater than ten years. Additionally, the Registry Agreement requires advance written notice of price increases. Do you intend to make contractual commitments to registrants regarding the magnitude of price escalation? If so, please describe your plans.

The Applicant will follow the lifecycle and business rules found in the majority of gTLDs today. Our back-end operator has in excess of ten years of experience managing numerous gTLDs that utilize standard and unique business rules and lifecycles.

Initial registrations of registered names may be made in the registry in one (1) year increments for up to a maximum of ten (10) years. For the avoidance of doubt, the registration term for registered names may not exceed ten (10) years. Further the renewal of registered names may be made in one (1) year increments for up to a maximum of ten (10) years. For the avoidance of doubt, renewal of registered names may not extend their registration period beyond ten (10) years from the time of the renewal.

The Applicant plans to review domain name registration rates on an annual basis and will make a determination at that time regarding adjustments, depending upon market factors. Thus, at this time, the Applicant does not plan to make specific guarantees regarding pricing increases.

The Applicant will provide ICANN and each ICANN accredited registrar that has executed the registry-registrar agreement for the gTLD advance written notice of any price increase (including as a result of the elimination of any refunds, rebates, discounts, product tying or other programs which had the effect of reducing the price charged to registrars, unless such refunds, rebates, discounts, product tying or other programs are of a limited duration that is clearly and conspicuously disclosed to the registrar when offered) that complies with the requirements as outlined in the New gTLD Registry Agreement.
-end-

gTLD	Full Legal Name	E-mail suffix	Detail
.网络	Computer Network Information Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences （China Internet Network Information Center）	cnnic.cn	View

18 c Operating Rules to Eliminate or Minimize Social Costs

18.c.1 Definition and Category of Social Costs

It is predicted that most of ʺ.网络ʺ domain names will be used within the Chinese language community, where a majority of the registrants is expected as emerging small and medium-sized organizations in developing countries. Therefore, it would be difficult to achieve the targets of ʺ.网络ʺ if the social costs are too high. To achieve the goals of ʺ.网络ʺ, CNNIC will minimize the following time or financial resource costs of registrants, registrars and end-users via policies and operations of ʺ.网络ʺ as far as possible. As predicted by CNNIC, the operation of ʺ.网络ʺ will mainly produce the following costs:

18c.1.1 For Registrants:

(1)costs for registration of ʺ.网络ʺ domain names

(2)costs for renewal of ʺ.网络ʺ domain names

(3)costs for trademark infringement dispute and defensive registration under ʺ.网络ʺ domain

(4)additional advertising costs incurred from the promotion of the ʺ.网络ʺ domain name

18c.1.2 For Registrars:

(1) service costs to be paid to the CNNIC

(2) costs for the promotion and marketing of ʺ.网络ʺ domain names

(3) costs for the operation and maintenance of ʺ.网络ʺ registration services

18c.1.3 For End-users:

(1) time costs for searching, inputting and memorizing the ʺ.网络ʺ domain name

(2) losses incurred to the consumer as a result of ʺ.网络ʺ domain name abuse


18c.2 Rules on ʺ.网络ʺ to minimize social costs

18c.2.1 For Registrants:

18c.2.1.1 Reasonable Pricing Model of Registration

(1). A unified pricing model including the price of registration and that of renewal will be formulated for ʺ.网络ʺ based on its market demand and operating costs (see Question 46 for details), and the prices will be maintained reasonable and stable to compete fairly with other IDN gTLD, so as to ensure that registrants, especially those with relatively weak economic capability are able to register the ʺ.网络ʺ domain name.

(2). As the registration of”.网络” increases, the unit operating cost for every domain will keep decreasing, and CNNIC will, based on the decrease in its operating costs, adjust the prices accordingly, and provide each ICANN accredited registrar that has executed registry-registrar agreement for “.网络” advance notice of any price change according to the regulations of ICANN.

(3). CNNIC will handle multiple applications for the same domain name on the basis of uniform price and first-come⁄first-serve to effectively reduce the bidding costs spent by registrants and enable more small and medium-sized enterprises to obtain high value domain names with relatively low prices.

(4). CNNIC forbids registrars to register domain names with false information, occupy domain name resources in a disguised form or drive up domain name prices.

(5)Because Chinese variants have the same pronunciation and the same meaning as its official form, Chinese users regard them as interchangeable. Thus a variant IDN, derived from an IDN by replacing some characters with their variants, should match the original IDN. It is a consensus within the Chinese language community that the Chinese internationalized domain label(IDL) and itʹs variants labels should be belong to the same registrant⁄applicant, and the Simplified and Traditional Chinese forms of the applied-for should be resolvable simultaneously or non-resolvable at all in ʺ.网络ʺ domain. Our policy will mandate that when an IDL is registered, all variant IDLs in the IDL package are unavailable to other name holders. In addition to the registered IDL, the registry will activate Simplified whole string and Traditional whole string IDLs to the same registrant⁄applicant for free.

18c.2.1.2 Effectively Reduced Costs for the Renewal of Domain Names

(1). Registrants are free to choose, at their own discretion, a registration period of 1-10 years (to a maximum of 10 years) and free to renew their registration based on their own will, and CNNIC will provide in its agreement with registrars that to buy or sell under coercion, sale with treats or selling bundled services on the part of registrars are prohibited.

(2). At the initial operating period of ʺ.网络ʺ, incentive measures will be taken to encourage new registrants to register ʺ.网络ʺ for a longer term of registration. Consumers of newly registered domain names will be exempted for paying certain term of registration period depending on the length of registration period, so as to expedite the popularization and lower the costs of domain names.

(3). To ensure reasonable price of renewal for consumers, CNNIC will take efforts to stabilize the price and propose to undertake in the registration agreement that the registration and renewal price will be kept as stabilized during an effective term of the Registry Contract. Certain price adjustment may take place at the contract renewal point with respect to the Consumer Price Index, labor cost and tax rate change in China and the market condition change. Therefore consumers do not need to worry about low price trap.

(4). CNNIC customer service group will conduct monitoring over consumers’ renewal of domain names, investigate cases where renewal fails to take place, and make improvement in services to the point in cooperation with registrars to make it more convenient for consumers to renew their domain names or change registrar and reduce costs for registrants.

18c.2.1.3 Guaranteed Trademark Rights and Reduced Costs for Domain Name Dispute

(1). A Sunrise Period of 30 days will be launched in accordance with relevant policies of ICANN on Trademark Clearing House Mechanism to allow qualified right holders of validated national recognized trademarks to register ʺ.网络ʺ domain names with priority. Trademark Claim Service will also be provided in the first 60 days of general registration period, for the registration of domain names that match with corresponding trademarks included in the Trademark Clearing House, so as to allow trademark holders to protect their trademark rights through registration and reduce costs resulting from domain name disputes.
　
(2). The UDRP, PDDRP and RRDRP provided by ICANN and relevant URS policies will be abided by in respect of ʺ.网络ʺ and accessibility of 99% information in Whois will be assured to ensure that domain name abuse. Dispute under ʺ.网络ʺ can be resolved in a timely manner and that losses incurred to domain name holders as a result of domain name abuse and trademark infringement can be reduced to the greatest extent possible.
　
(3) Efforts will be made to introduce the Chinese domain names to the software vendors in order to expedite applications Chinese ʺ.网络ʺ domain name. This will enable consumers to get to know the use value of Chinese domain names, increase the level of activity of domain names, reduce investments in domain name registration purely for defensive purposes, and upgrade the practical value of domain names.

(4) CNNIC will undertake to treat all registrants equally, and except for domain names reserved or restricted from registration as prescribed by national laws and relevant provisions of ICANN, all holders of trademark rights will be entitled to the same registration right. CNNIC will not set any priorities in the protection of specific trademarks and guarantees to treat each registrant in a fair manner.

18c.2.1.4 Reduced Costs for the Promotion of Domain Names

(1) ʺ.网络ʺ supports various combinations of Chinese characters, and a ʺ.网络ʺ domain name can be made exactly match the Chinese name of a corresponding Internet service products or brands, which makes it convenient for consumers to read and memorize, improves effectiveness in the publicity of the name of the organization, and makes it easy for itself to be accepted by most of the Chinese language end-users without too much costs for publicity.

(2) CNNIC will reinforce in its publicity plans the promotion of typical cases of the application of ʺ.网络ʺ domain names and boost publicity among registrants from sideways, and concurrently increase acceptance of Chinese domain names by consumers to save publicity costs.

18c.2.2 For Registrars:

18c.2.2.1 Reasonable Registry Fee

(1) CNNIC will provide all registrars accredited by ICANN with uniform policies on prices, preferential treatments and discounts to ensure that registrars can engage in fair competition.

(2) The pricing of ʺ.网络ʺ domain names in registrars is relatively low as compared to other IDN gTLDs of the same category, therefore there is a room with competitive advantage for surrendering part of the profits on the part of the registrars.

18c.2.2.2 Reduced Costs for the Promotion and Marketing of ʺ.网络ʺ

(1) CNNIC will be engaged in active cooperation with registrars in carrying out diversified marketing activities, including advertising and news release, and designate staffs to attend sales conferences organized by registrars and promote their sale.

(2) CNNIC will institute a rebate program during each year of operation. Through this rebate program, ICANN-accredited registrars that have registered domain names in the new TLD will be eligible to receive a rebate based on the registration increase and renewal rate. This policy will be provided to each registrar equally. CNNIC will conduct annual appraisal of its licensed registrars. If an increase in new registration and renewal rate is found compared to the benchmark value of the last year’s performance, CNNIC will grant a certain amount of rebates with respect to the newly registered domain names, which shall be used as marketing funds for ʺ.网络ʺ to encourage registrars to develop markets especially in areas with a relatively low market penetration rate.
　
18c.2.2.3 Reduced Costs for the Operation of ʺ.网络ʺ

(1). Registrars will not be charged with any certification cost, and any registrar that qualifies for the provision of ʺ.网络ʺ registration services may apply to become a ʺ.网络ʺ registrar.

(2) The registry architecture will automate several functions. These include the ability to track, in real-time, status updates of customer registrars, custom reports for registrars, near real-time zone file updates, and over the medium term, real-time updates of the DNS zone files. By automating these processes, registrars can expect meaningful operational cost savings. As such, CNNIC, through its technological solutions, will provide indirect business opportunities to its customer registrars through lower operational costs.

(3). There are relatively mature registrar support staffs and secure and reliable registration service platform and client which are ready to help registrars to establish ʺ.网络ʺ domain name registration services with the lowest costs.
　
18c.2.3 For End-Users:

18c.2.3.1 Reduced Costs for Searching, Inputting and Memorizing the ʺ.网络ʺ Domain Name

(1) With the efforts of CNNIC and the Chinese language community, currently most of the browsers support the input of Chinese domain names, which has reduced costs resulting from incompatibility.

(2) CNNIC is also actively cooperating with such Chinese language search engines and software vendors for promoting applications of Chinese domain names to make it convenient for consumers to accept Chinese domain names.

(3)The form of the ʺ.网络ʺ domain name also fit neatly with the reading and memory habits of Chinese language users and reduces additional time costs incurred from domain name confusion.

18c.2.3.2 Reduced Losses Resulting Domain Name Abuse

(1). CNNIC’s experience in domain name management will be utilized to impose punishment with respect to such acts of domain name abuse as phishing websites and virus transmission in a timely manner to reduce consumers’ costs, and CNNIC undertakes that the percentage of ʺ.网络ʺ domain name abuse will not exceed 5%.

(2). Accredited registrars will be required to verify the accuracy of information in Whois, so as to ensure that law enforcement agencies can find the person who has committed act of domain name abuse and relieves can be obtained in time with respect to the rights of consumers.

(3) Chinese variants have the same pronunciation and the same meaning as its official form, Chinese users regard them as interchangeable. The Chinese internationalized domain label(IDL) and itʹs variants labels will be mandated by CNNIC’s policy following the rules as the Simplified and Traditional Chinese forms of the applied-for should be resolvable simultaneously for the same registrant⁄applicant or non-resolvable at all in ʺ.网络ʺ domain. This will reduce the chance of string confusion caused by Chinese variant domain names.

18c.3 Specific Measures to Minimize Social Costs

18c.3.1 Domain Name String Contention Resolution

　CNNIC will, based on the right protection mechanism of ICANN, make Sunrise registration services available for holders of valid trademark rights during the 30-day Sunrise Period prior to the official launch of the general public registration of the ʺ.网络ʺ domain name. All trademark right holders will be entitled to equal priority in registration, the principle of first-come⁄first serve shall apply in case of domain name string contention, and uniform prices will be used. This measure will reduce the costs of domain name registration to the greatest extent possible comparing with the method of auction.

　After the Sunrise Period, CNNIC will continue to resolve domain name string contention on the first-come⁄first serve basis. Where any domain name dispute occurs, UDRP shall apply. Besides, either party may resort to arbitration or judicial decision, or consumers may file complaints with URS providers in view of domain name use with bad faith.

18c.3.2 Cost Benefits Measures

To drive the stable development of ʺ.网络ʺ, CNNIC plans to adopt a two-stage promotion scheme based on the principle of providing fair and consistent preferential policies for all registrants and registries. The first stage will be consumer incentives, during which domain name registrants will be stimulated to enhance the popularity and acceptability of domain names; and the second stage will be channel incentives, during which further support will be provided for registrars to conduct marketing on the basis of consumers’ recognition in the first stage.

18c.3.2.1 First Stage

18c.3.2.1.1 Period

The period of the first stage will be the first calendar year after the initial launch of ʺ.网络ʺ for registration.

18c.3.2.1.2 Targets

(1) Enhance the popularity and acceptability of domain names among consumers, and increase market attention.

(2) Increase the average term of registration of newly registered domain names and ensure the stability of domain name users.

18c.3.2.1.3 Measures

CNNIC will take incentive measures directly targeted at consumers to encourage them to register ʺ.网络ʺ for a longer term of registration. Specifically, CNNIC will grant price concession for one-time domain name new registration with a certain length of period , so as to expedite the popularization and increase the average new registration of domain names:

(1)An one-year exemption will be granted to the users who register one time for four to six years ;

(2)A two-year exemption will be granted to the users who register one time for seven to nine years;

(3)A three-year exemption will be granted to the users who register one time for ten years.

18c.3.2.2 Second Stage

18c.3.2.2.1 Period

The period of the second stage shall be 12 natural months since the end of the first stage, and appraisement will be conducted on a yearly basis.

18c.3.2.2.2 Targets

(1) Encourage registrars to increase the new registration of the ʺ.网络ʺ domain name.

(2) Encourage registrars to increase renewals of historical ʺ.网络ʺ domain names.

(3) Encourage registrars to increase the proportion of their ʺ.网络ʺ domain name business.

18c.3.2.2.3 Measures

If during the appraisal of the first year, a certain percentage of growth is seen in the newly registered domain names in any registrar as compared to the benchmark value and a certain rate of renewal is achieved, CNNIC will grant a certain amount of rebates with respect to the newly registered domain names as a marketing fund for the domain name promotion in the lower market penetration area, as is shown in the attached table in 48(a)_attachement_1_schedule_2.

18c.3.3 Provisions on Price Increase

18.3.3.1 Limit on price increase

Based on the expected increasing amount of the registration of ʺ.网络ʺ, the single unit service cost for each registration is expected to be reduced. CNNIC will take efforts to stabilize the price and propose to undertake in the registration agreement that the registration and renewal price will be kept as stabilized during an effective term of the Registry Contract. Some price adjustment may take place at the contract renewal point with respect to the following conditions:

(1)economic environment change with higher inflation rate in China

(2)tax increase

(3)labor cost increase

(4)other market variation and technical evolution that may lead to cost change

Due to uncertainty of the market environment at the time of delegation, the actual contractual terms of annual price increase magnitude within the registry agreement shall be further discussed based on the above conditions at the time of delegation.

18.3.3.2 Notice of Price Increase

With respect to initial domain name registrations, CNNIC will provide ICANN and each ICANN accredited registrar that has executed the RRA for the TLD advance written notice of any price increase (including as a result of the elimination of any refunds, rebates, discounts, product tying or other programs which had the effect of reducing the price charged to registrars, unless such refunds, rebates, discounts, product tying or other programs are of a limited duration that is clearly and conspicuously disclosed to the registrar when offered) of no less than thirty (30) calendar days. CNNIC will offer registrars the option to obtain initial domain name registrations for periods of one to ten years at the discretion of the registrar, but no greater than ten years.

With respect to renewal of domain name registrations, CNNIC will provide ICANN and each ICANN accredited registrar that has executed the registry-registrar agreement for the TLD advance written notice of any price increase (including as a result of the elimination of any refunds, rebates, discounts, product tying, Qualified Marketing Programs or other programs which had the effect of reducing the price charged to registrars) of no less than one hundred eighty (180) calendar days.

In addition, CNNIC will have uniform pricing for renewals of domain name registrations (“Renewal Pricing”). For the purposes of determining Renewal Pricing, the price for each domain registration renewal will be identical to the price of all other domain name registration renewals in place at the time of such renewal, and such price must take into account universal application of any refunds, rebates, discounts, product tying or other programs in place at the time of renewal.