| gTLD | Full Legal Name | E-mail suffix | Detail | | .law | Merchant Law Group LLP | merchantlaw.com | View |
Question No. 18(a)
.LAW Top Level Domain
18(a).1 Mission of the .LAW TLD
.LAW’s mission is to be the designated namespace for the world’s legal information and law-related markets and to enable essential people, organizations, and businesses to realize their full potential and the potential of the Internet through a secure, responsible, and conservatively managed TLD.
18(a).2 Value Proposition of .LAW
.LAW is the online standard for legal information, legal industry services, and law-related markets.
18(a).3 The Purpose of .LAW
The .LAW TLD will be an Internet space, managed by MLG, to allow the distribution, marketing, and exchange of information and services relevant to law, by means of, but not limited to, websites, social networks, email, and other technologies. MLG will be adapting and broadening the scale and scope of these activities to ensure the successful launch of the .LAW TLD.
MLG and its .LAW team have the knowledge, experience, and resources to ensure that .LAW will be a viable, differentiated platform for the world’s online legal information and industry services markets that enables people, organizations, and all members of the global legal community to realize their full potential and the potential of the Internet.
MLG has a plan to develop, build, and sustain a unique value proposition for the .LAW TLD, and a marketing strategy to ensure that the maximum number of people and organizations are aware of how a .LAW domain can enhance their value proposition. A .LAW domain will provide a competitive advantage to registrants through a multitude of scenarios. MLG’s delivery of the .LAW value proposition will provide an additional incentive for registrants acquiring .LAW domains to leverage their resources and capabilities and develop their unique place on the World Wide Web.
MLG believes in being nimble, flexible, and well funded, with a long term vision for the .LAW TLD. We have the ingenuity and partnerships to market and develop .LAW in a manner that:
(1)quickly establishes an online legal information base, market, and standard;
(2)preserves the integrity and promotes the development of various country and region specific .LAW domains through accredited organizations;
(3)establishes customers who will immediately derive value from a .LAW TLD;
(4)protects registered trademark holders without undue cost to them;
(5)builds and protects the value proposition of the .LAW TLD;
(6)ensures the continued development of the .LAW TLD through competition and innovation; and
(7)leverages assets, resources and competencies to effectively and efficiently establish a registration base from target registrant markets and all other members of the global legal community and public who can benefit from an ever expanding .LAW TLD.
MLG affirms the Internet is a transformative technology that continues to empower people around the globe, spur innovation, facilitate trade and commerce, and enable the free and unfettered flow of information. MLG envisions .LAW domains to be registered and used by anyone who is interested in communicating about and providing goods, services, and information related to law. .LAW domain registrations will not be restricted and everyone will have an opportunity to register a .LAW domain name.
As a business, MLG will establish and market the .LAW TLD to all law-related professionals, individuals, firms, businesses, and organizations. The competitive advantages of MLG and its partners in the practice of law, in knowledge of the legal industry, in providing registry services, and in marketing, will ensure that the .LAW TLD realizes its full potential on a global basis. .LAW’s competitive advantages will be developed and established through marketing strategy, the sustained delivery of its value proposition and a responsive management team. .LAW will utilize various strategies to target different markets.
.LAW’s largest initial target market will include legal professionals and law firms. This market is competitive due to the proliferation of web presence options. Members of this market have specific needs, including establishing and maintaining a distinct, clear, and credible law-related online presence. An online presence through a .LAW TLD will fulfill the needs of this market due to .LAW’s uniqueness, succinctness, and availability. A differentiation strategy will be utilized to leverage .LAW’s inherent uniqueness and the resources and capabilities of MLG and its partners to compete successfully against other online marketing options and TLD’s.
.LAW’s other target markets include law students, law-related service providers, and law-related organizations and associations. An online presence through a .LAW TLD will provide numerous benefits to members of these markets due to .LAW’s quality service, availability, and uniqueness. Strategies based on competitive registration pricing and leveraging the core competencies of MLG and its partners will garner a critical level of market share and quickly build a quality online foundation for the .LAW TLD.
MLG is well positioned to develop and market the value proposition for the .LAW TLD as the online standard for legal information, legal industry services, and law-related markets. MLG is a well established full service national law firm based in Canada, and developed its core competencies in law as an objective, results-oriented service provider. We understand the business of law, the traditional legal community, the legal support and services community, the emerging global legal community, and emerging trends in law-related industries. MLG has entered into an agreement with CentralNic, a long established global domain name registry, to carry out all back-end registry services and to assist the .LAW management team with the operation and marketing of the .LAW TLD. Together, MLG and CentralNic are uniquely positioned to ensure the initial and long-term success of the .LAW TLD.
MLG is not new to the business of engaging and promoting lawyers around the world. In 2009, MLG supported the development of an innovative, global web-based legal network platform to increase access to lawyers and legal information. This enterprise was in response to research showing that although many groups were involved in trying to consolidate associations and members of the law community, there had been no successful framework built to bring together the world’s network of legal professionals and institutions. The .LAW TLD presents an opportunity to develop and build an online standard for legal information, legal industry services, and law-related markets.
The introduction of a .LAW TLD offers numerous benefits and opportunities to the global legal industry and the online community. MLG will work closely with CentralNic and major registrars to implement a focused marketing strategy with an emphasis on ensuring that the traditional legal community adopts and builds on the .LAW foundation. MLG is committed to fostering competition, consumer trust, and consumer choice within the .LAW TLD Internet space and the broader global marketplace. MLG and its partners understand the intrinsic value, rarity, and non-imitability of the .LAW TLD and have the expertise, strategy, and capacity to ensure the successful establishment and growth of the .LAW TLD. Through our goals, policies, and operating rules, MLG is committed to managing the .LAW TLD in a manner that maximizes benefits and mitigates costs for all stakeholders.
| 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.