18(b) How do you expect that your proposed gTLD will benefit registrants, Internet users, and others?

Prototypical answer:

A .group TLD is fulfillment of the Internet’s cooperative and crowd-based capabilities. It will benefit those individuals and entities that encourage and participate in collaborative work and activities. It will provide a clearly marked space for those that participate in both physical and digitally based groups, and allow the top-level signifier to create more meaning in everyday Internet usage.

i.) What is the goal of your proposed gTLD in terms of areas of specialty, service levels, or reputation?

The .group TLD will be an open TLD, and it is our goal to create a safe and secure space that all Internet users can rely on and choose to join; we believe that pursuing this bottom-up model is in the best interest of the productive development of the .group TLD, which also further underscores the importance of the bottom-up, multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance. Therefore, we hope to enjoy an esteemed reputation among our registrants, which will carry over to Internet users accessing content on the .group TLD.

ii.) What do you anticipate your proposed gTLD will add to the current space, in terms of areas of competition, differentiation, or innovation?
It is our goal at Top Level Design, LLC to create a competitive, specified alternative to the popular but exceedingly generic TLDs available today. It is a commonly accepted notion that common TLDs are reaching a point of saturation, and that the best, most marketable domains were registered years ago. We believe that implementing a .group TLD will bring greater attention and market success to entities that proudly identify as collaborative groups. At Top Level Design, LLC, we believe that the .group TLD is an intuitive top-level domain that represents a progressive development in how end-users utilize and identify via the root zone.

iii.) What goals does your proposed gTLD have in terms of user experience?

We hope that the general nature of the .group TLD will mean that end-users’ normal Internet activities are not disrupted at all by its implementation. It is not a controversial or vague string, and as such its implementation should be well received. The .group TLD is a natural extension of current TLD offerings, and we believe that users will be positively impacted by the new offering. The content of a .group TLD would obviously vary, but by creating a safe and secure TLD provided by a small, accessible registry that

We will create a safe and secure TLD, and believe that this is the most important way to ensure that our users have positive experiences when using .group.

iv.) Provide a complete description of the applicant’s intended registration policies in support of the goals listed above.

We intend to implement an open registration policy offered through ICANN-accredited registrars. There will be no proof of legitimacy required for registration, although we will encourage that the domains be used for hosting content or forum related to a specific group. Through targeted marketing efforts and niche pricing levels, we expect to see that a large majority of the domains registered will be by those with plans to develop relevant sites.

We will fully implement the requirements made by the ICANN Board with regards to the Trademark Clearinghouse, the URS, Trademark PDDRP, the RRDRP, and the UDRP. We believe the these measures have been suitably developed to prevent defensive registrations, bad faith registrations, and other malicious registrations.

v.) Will your proposed gTLD impose any measures for protecting the privacy or confidential information of registrants or users? If so, please describe any such measures.

As per the current requirements in Section 4 of the Registry Agreement, we will implement all necessary thick WHOIS services. We recognize how imperative it is for each registry and ICANN-accredited registrar to be in full compliance with ICANN’s current WHOIS standards, and we plan to update our policy in accordance with any future measures taken by the ICANN Board in regard to the continuous work by the GNSO’s WHOIS Task Force and other recommendations from the SOs. We have no plans to implement any privacy or confidential measures other than fully implementing any and all such measures required by ICANN.

Similar gTLD applications: (0)