18(c) What operating rules will you adopt to eliminate or minimize social costs?

Prototypical answer:

In the Sunrise period, which will be exclusively conducted according to the Trademark Clearing House Process, there may be multiple generally valid applications for a particular domain name. In this case the domain will be awarded based on which registrant put the application in first.
(This process is described fully in our response to Question #29) (“Rights Protection Mechanisms”).
In the General Availability period domains will be awarded in real time, on a first-come, first-serve basis.

There will be a fee for each Sunrise application received. This fee will help defray the costs of implementing the Trademark Clearinghouse and Trademark Claims Service, both of which ICANN requires. We have not yet determined the exact amount of the fee, which may depend upon market conditions and the technical details of ICANN’s Trademark Clearinghouse, which we must comply with. But we intend that the fees be fair and appropriate. The Sunrise application fee will help discourage speculative registrations.

Our registrars will enjoy fair and equitable access to the registry and equitable treatment in other interactions. We will make this promise in our registry-registrar agreement. The registry operator shall not apply standards, policies, procedures or practices arbitrarily, unjustifiably, or inequitably, and shall not single out a Registrar for disparate treatment unless justified by substantial and reasonable cause.

As a matter of operational practice:
1. Each registrar will have a minimum number of guaranteed connections to the registry, which may be increased based on traffic.
2. We will not discriminate between traffic from different registrars or throttle one registrar’s transactions in favor of another.
3. We will not discriminate between registrars when providing technical support or customer service.
4. All registrars will be subject the same credit and payment policies, which will be posted to the registry website.
WHOIS Rate Limiting and WHOIS Terms of Use: Our registry will have a binding WHOIS rate limiting policy and a WHOIS Terms of Use. Abuse of WHOIS services at the registry level will subject to an automated rate-limiting system that ensures that service to users is unaffected by a few parties whose activities abuse or otherwise might threaten to overload the WHOIS system. Data mining of any sort on the WHOIS system will be strictly prohibited without prior written permission.
Users of WHOIS will bound by industry-standard terms of use, which prevent use of WHOIS for certain uses, such as to facilitate spamming and telemarketing. The registry operator will reserve the right to take all appropriate actions should data-mining activities be observed on its WHOIS system.


18 (c) ii. Explain any cost benefits for registrants you intend to implement.
We intend to establish a policy, which will ensure favourable pricing for charitable organizations engaged in the AIDS response to support them in their effort.


18 (c) iii. Do you intend to make contractual commitments to registrants regarding the magnitude of price escalation?
dotHIV does not plan to make contractual commitments to registrars as of today. Estimations about future market and price developments will be purely speculative and therefore not reasonable. However dotHIV will comply with the rules for price increases set forth in the new gTLD Registry Agreement. .HIV domains will be available through accredited registrars who will be provided with equal (non-discriminatory) access to registry services. Premium names and reserved names for auction will have a discreet pricing.
According to the details as specified in the New gTLD Registry Agreement dotHIV will have the right to reduce pricing for promotional purposes in a manner available to all accredited registrars. In case of price increases dotHIV will comply with the rules ICANN established to initiate an increase in the wholesale price. In case of price increases dotHIV will notify all accredited registrars well in advance.

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