20(c) Provide a description of the community-based purpose of the applied-for gTLD

Prototypical answer:

Architects are a highly regulated profession. The designation “architect” is generally reserved by law or custom to a person who is professionally and academically qualified and generally registered⁄licensed⁄certified to practice architecture in the jurisdiction in which he or she practices and is responsible for advocating the fair and sustainable development, welfare, and the cultural expression of society’s habitat in terms of space, forms, and historical context.

Registration⁄licensing⁄certification is the official legal recognition of an individual’s qualification allowing her or him to practice as an independent architect, associated with regulations preventing unqualified persons from performing certain functions. Given the public interest in a high-quality, sustainable built environment and the dangers and consequences associated with the construction industry, it is important that architectural services are solely provided by qualified professionals.

Architects are aware of their responsibility for the independent and, if necessary, critical advice provided to their clients and for the effects of their work on society and the environment. Architects undertake to perform professional services only when they, together with those whom they may engage as consultants, are qualified by education, training, and⁄or experience in the specific technical areas involved.

That level of compliance and integrity does not exist within current TLDs and can only be enforced through a community-based TLD application.

Shaped in collaboration with the community, the .archi gTLD will serve the architectural profession as well as consumers.

The .archi gTLD will be restricted to following registrants:

- Architects who are members of the International Union of Architects (UIA);
- Architecture Firms that employ one or more architects who are members of the UIA;
- Companies, associations that employ one or more architects who are members of the UIA;
- List of architecture schools, museums, professional press⁄media, defined by the .archi Policy Advisory Committee in collaboration with the UIA and its member sections.

By monitoring skills, code of conduct and ethics of registrants, the .archi gTLD will protect consumers and thereby increase their trust in architectural services provided via Internet.

It is important for architects to be able to recognize each other and belong to a body, which has established the same membership rules, whatever, their form of professional practice. It is of course in the interest of architects to meet colleagues with the same training, the same or equivalent degree⁄diploma⁄certificate, who respect the same ethics and who have identical or comparable forms of practice.

The .archi gTLD will precisely be an online space of identity and gathering for professional practicing architecture.

Starting Dot will define and control a list of reserved names that have a value for the entire architectural profession, in order to delegate them to those registrants who are committing to use these in order to support the community for which the .archi gTLD is initially intended.

The funds of the UIA consist of the membership fees paid by Members; donations, legacies, sponsorships, and subsidies accepted by the Council; and revenue derived from Union activities. By donating a fixed and predefined percentage of its profits to the UIA, Starting Dot will also contribute to the functioning of the Union and to the funding of programs devoted to the world community of architects.

Finally, the .archi gTLD will:

- Enable and promote free circulation of architects in all countries;
- Promote collaboration and networking between architects;
- Promote free and healthy competition, based on principles of transparency and fairness.

Starting Dot is therefore convinced that the .archi gTLD will change consumer habits and impose itself as a lasting communication tool for architects and their immediate environment.

Similar gTLD applications: (0)