gTLD	Full Legal Name	E-mail suffix	Detail
.wales	Nominet UK	nominet.org.uk	View

Summary

The mission and purpose of dot WALES will be to provide an innovative, relevant and trusted internet top level domain (TLD) for the use and benefit of the citizens and businesses of Wales and the Welsh diaspora.

For Welsh businesses, organisations and individuals, a dot WALES domain will contribute to a sense of community and ‘togetherness’, reflecting community pride and unity, and offering scope to celebrate Wales’s unique culture.

In a study carried out as background to this application (see attachment Q46_Economic_Study.pdf) 70% of consumers and 59% of businesses believe Wales should have its own domain space. 70% of consumers also said they would prefer a dot WALES TLD to a dot COM extension. 40% of businesses surveyed said that a dot WALES domain name could help promote their business in Wales.

We expect significant business take-up for the promotion of key economic sectors in Wales, such as leisure, tourism, agriculture and the creative industries, to reinforce local preference purchasing, and for the purpose of branding and awareness-raising of Wales to the world at large. More detail on this is provided in our answer to question 18(b).

We also expect dot WALES to contribute positively to the development of the Wales brand and to wider recognition of that brand overseas. In this way it will support the Welsh Government’s work in raising the profile of Wales internationally to attract inward investment, to promote exports and to grow the Welsh economy.

Nominet is bringing forward this bid. Nominet is a not-for–profit company which has been successfully running dot UK, the fourth largest registry in the world, for over fifteen years. Nominet’s systems and processes are at the leading edge within the registry community and it takes a responsible approach to policy development resulting in greater levels of protection to registrants and other stakeholders. ICANN can be confident that it will comfortably meet or exceed all the relevant technical, operational and financial criteria set out in the application process.

Nominet will operate the dot WALES TLD on a not for profit basis with any surplus being reinvested in community projects in Wales.

Nominet has received the necessary statements of non-objection from the Welsh Government and from the UK Government. We have also received strong statements of endorsement from the Welsh Assembly and from a wide range of business and community organisations in Wales.

Nominet is bringing forward in parallel an application for dot CYMRU (Cymru is the Welsh language name for Wales). Although ICANN’s rules require that these two TLDs are submitted as separate applications, it is our intention to provide them as part of a single, bilingual registry operation which serves the needs of all the constituent communities in Wales.

Operating model

The operating model for dot WALES will be an open TLD, primarily operating on a first come, first served basis, which is price-competitive with existing mass market TLDs. We will adopt an approach that effectively balances eligibility criteria with commercial sustainability which is most appropriate given Wales’s economic and cultural profile in the world.

Applicants for a dot WALES domain will be required to meet one of two registration criteria either (a) a validated postal address from a predefined list of postcodes associated with Wales; or, (b) complete an EPP extension field during their application setting out their affiliation with Wales. This affiliation need not be based on location of the applicant but instead their connection with Wales.

The geographical association (a) will be checked on application as part of a standard check for valid contact details for the domain applicant (see answer to Q28 for further details).

The registration policy ensures dot WALES is accessible to Wales-based businesses, organisations and individuals as well as those who have a connection with Wales, whether the Welsh diaspora or a company based outside Wales with a strong affinity to and customer base within Wales.

Policy development and implementation

We are committed to developing dot WALES policy through a multi-stakeholder model of engagement and consultation, in line with accepted internet industry best practice. The community of dot WALES stakeholders is broad, comprising Wales-specific communities who will be the key users and registrants of the domain space, in addition to sector or issue specific communities who represent particular concerns. In addition to addressing communities of interest such as those concerned with rights protection, law enforcement and so on, policy development for dot WALES will need to address legitimate community aspirations in relation to the promotion of Welsh economic development, language and culture.

We recognise that consideration and implementation of the processes and mechanisms for facilitating community engagement is central to effective policy making. These are integral to ensuring that legitimate concerns have an opportunity to be heard, consultation processes are perceived as open and transparent, and to enable the registry to manage the various competing interests of stakeholders. We have already started informal discussions of the concept and objectives of the dot WALES namespace amongst stakeholders.

We have tracked the evolution of the new TLD programme and we believe that this TLD opportunity fits very closely with ICANN’s stated aims. Dot WALES increases competition and choice, promotes innovation and addresses new market needs, whilst at the same time it ensures that any potential harms to consumers and businesses are minimised.

We draw your attention in particular to the extensive measures, over and above those required by the application process that we are proposing to put in place to secure businesses’ existing rights and to protect consumers from harm. For example, we are proposing extended sunrise phases for registered rights holders and unregistered rights holders, approaches that will minimise abusive registrations and policies that will address such registrations if they do occur. These are set out in more detail in the remainder of this question and in the answers to the relevant questions, 28 and 29 in this application.

gTLD	Full Legal Name	E-mail suffix	Detail
.limited	Big Fest, LLC	donuts.co	View

Q18A SVC CHAR: 7572

ABOUT DONUTS
Donuts Inc. is the parent applicant for this and multiple other TLDs. The company intends to increase competition and consumer choice at the top level. It will operate these carefully selected TLDs safely and securely in a shared resources business model. To achieve its objectives, Donuts has recruited seasoned executive management with proven track records of excellence in the industry. In addition to this business and operational experience, the Donuts team also has contributed broadly to industry policymaking and regulation, successfully launched TLDs, built industry-leading companies from the ground up, and brought innovation, value and choice to the domain name marketplace.

ABOUT DONUTS’ RESOURCES
Donuts’ has raised more than US$100 million from a number of capital sources for TLDs. Our well-resourced, capable and skilled organization will operate these TLDs and benefit Internet users by:

1. Providing the operational and financial stability necessary for TLDs of all sizes, but particularly for those with smaller volume (which are more likely to succeed within a shared resources model);
2. Competing more powerfully against incumbent gTLDs; and
3. More thoroughly and uniformly executing consumer and rights holder protections.

THE .LIMITED TLD
This TLD is attractive and useful to end-users as it better facilitates search, self-expression, information sharing and the provision of legitimate goods and services. Along with the other TLDs in the Donuts family, this TLD will provide Internet users with opportunities for online identities and expression that do not currently exist. In doing so, the TLD will introduce significant consumer choice and competition to the Internet namespace – the very purpose of ICANN’s new TLD program.

This TLD is a generic term and its second level names will be attractive to a variety of Internet users. Making this TLD available to a broad audience of registrants is consistent with the competition goals of the New TLD expansion program, and consistent with ICANN’s objective of maximizing Internet participation. Donuts believes in an open Internet and, accordingly, we will encourage inclusiveness in the registration policies for this TLD. In order to avoid harm to legitimate registrants, Donuts will not artificially deny access, on the basis of identity alone (without legal cause), to a TLD that represents a generic form of activity and expression.

The .LIMITED TLD will be attractive to a very broad and diverse group of registrants that may include companies and non-profits in multiple international and intra-country jurisdictions that use the “limited” term as a corporate or organizational identifier. It would be further available to companies in jurisdictions that may later adopt this moniker. The “limited” term is widely utilitarian, as evidenced by various international applications—for example, separate from their context as incorporated entities, organizations have used the “limited” term to refer to various products and services (in the case of the known clothing retailer, we would work to reserve certain names that arguably could interfere with the rights of that entity). Commensurate with its applicability as a dictionary term, its potential user set is wide, and the TLD would be appropriately inclusive. We would operate this TLD in the best interests of entities in all jurisdictions and in a secure and legitimate manner.

DONUTS’ APPROACH TO PROTECTIONS
No entity, or group of entities, has exclusive rights to own or register second level names in this TLD. There are superior ways to minimize the potential abuse of second level names, and in this application Donuts will describe and commit to an extensive array of protections against abuse, including protections against the abuse of trademark rights.

We recognize some applicants seek to address harms by constraining access to the registration of second level names. However, we believe attempts to limit abuse by limiting registrant eligibility is unnecessarily restrictive and harms users by denying access to many legitimate registrants. Restrictions on second level domain eligibility would prevent law-abiding individuals and organizations from participating in a space to which they are legitimately connected, and would inhibit the sort of positive innovation we intend to see in this TLD. As detailed throughout this application, we have struck the correct balance between consumer and business safety, and open access to second level names.

By applying our array of protection mechanisms, Donuts will make this TLD a place for Internet users that is far safer than existing TLDs. Donuts will strive to operate this TLD with fewer incidences of fraud and abuse than occur in incumbent TLDs. In addition, Donuts commits to work toward a downward trend in such incidents.

OUR PROTECTIONS
Donuts has consulted with and evaluated the ideas of international law enforcement, consumer privacy advocacy organizations, intellectual property interests and other Internet industry groups to create a set of protections that far exceed those in existing TLDs, and bring to the Internet namespace nearly two dozen new rights and protection mechanisms to raise user safety and protection to a new level.

These include eight, innovative and forceful mechanisms and resources that far exceed the already powerful protections in the applicant guidebook. These are:

1. Periodic audit of WhoIs data for accuracy;
2. Remediation of inaccurate Whois data, including takedown, if warranted;
3. A new Domain Protected Marks List (DPML) product for trademark protection;
4. A new Claims Plus product for trademark protection;
5. Terms of use that prohibit illegal or abusive activity;
6. Limitations on domain proxy and privacy service;
7. Published policies and procedures that define abusive activity; and
8. Proper resourcing for all of the functions above.

They also include fourteen new measures that were developed specifically by ICANN for the new TLD process. These are:

1. Controls to ensure proper access to domain management functions;
2. 24⁄7⁄365 abuse point of contact at registry;
3. Procedures for handling complaints of illegal or abusive activity, including remediation and takedown processes;
4. Thick WhoIs;
5. Use of the Trademark Clearinghouse;
6. A Sunrise process;
7. A Trademark Claims process;
8. Adherence to the Uniform Rapid Suspension system;
9. Adherence to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy;
10. Adherence to the Post Delegation Dispute Resolution Policy;
11. Detailed security policies and procedures;
12. Strong security controls for access, threat analysis and audit;
13. Implementation DNSSEC; and
14. Measures for the prevention of orphan glue records.

Further, due to the multi-jurisdictional aspect of this string, Donuts will provide appropriate authorities with the capability to make designations in the Whois record relevant to the registrant’s organizational establishment in that jurisdiction.

DONUTS’ INTENTION FOR THIS TLD
As a senior government authority has recently said, “a successful applicant is entrusted with operating a critical piece of global Internet infrastructure.” Donuts’ plan and intent is for this TLD to serve the international community by bringing new users online through opportunities for economic growth, increased productivity, the exchange of ideas and information and greater self-expression.