gTLD	Full Legal Name	E-mail suffix	Detail
.GDN	Guardian News and Media Limited	centralnic.com	View

Guardian News and Media (GNM) has chosen to apply for the TLD to provide an accessible, safe, secure, and globally recognized service for high quality, open journalism that simultaneously promotes awareness of GNM services and products and facilitates the digital growth and geographic expansion of the brands under the Guardian News and Media umbrella. The TLDwill control and protect Guardian News and Media’s brands and services by providing an official digital hub for readers, information-seekers, and investors worldwide as well as fostering consumer trust by creating a secure, reliable, resilient, and technically stable zone that is as renowned for its excellence as are the brands within the GNM aegis. GNM’s highly distinctive, open approach to publishing on the web is part of its digital-first strategy, and the choice to apply for the TLD falls squarely within Guardian News and Media’s reputation for innovation, excellence, independence, and longevity while echoing its firm commitment to the primacy of digital technology to the future of journalism and publishing. The global deployment of the TLD in parallel with the digital expansion of GNM’s brands will therefore contribute to ICANNʹs commitment to innovation, consumer protection, security, and stability.

Founded in 1821 in Manchester UK, the Guardian has been known by the name “the Guardian” since 1959. The term “Guardian” is associated with a vast array of products and services related to the Guardian (the newspaper which inspired the establishment of Guardian News and Media), and they include but are not limited to: physical daily (the Guardian) and weekly (Guardian Weekly) newspapers; weekly supplements (G2); news websites and web content (www.guardian.co.uk); social media accounts and pages (on Twitter, Facebook, etc.); online products and services (Guardian Jobs, Guardian Soulmates, etc.); and film and production (Guardian Films). As a result, millions of internet users and consumers worldwide associate the term “Guardian” with Guardian News and Media products, and this number is only projected to increase with the forecast expansion of the Guardian brand. The Guardian holds Trademarks on the term “Guardian” in 9 jurisdictions worldwide, ensuring not only the protection of the brand but also its public recognition.

Headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with an office in New York, Guardian News and Media is wholly owned by the Scott Trust, which exists to protect the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian Media Group companies. The Groupʹs portfolio of investments, which help fund its journalism and secure its long term future, ensure that the Guardian and Observer are able to continue delivering their unique brand of independent liberal journalism to a global audience. Although the media sector as a whole currently faces major challenges - of which the greatest is the ongoing transition form traditional to digital media - Guardian News and Media successfully developed and implemented new business models and strategies throughout the past twelve months, allowing the Guardian and Observer to focus on producing outstanding journalism. The culmination of this commitment to journalistic excellence occurred when the Guardian was named Newspaper of the Year at the 2011 British Press Awards.

Guardian News and Media was an early adopter of digital media as a means of disseminating news and current events, and it is a pioneer in open APIs, interactive news technologies, and data journalism. Guardian News and Mediaʹs commitment to digital innovation has seeped into every facet of the Groupʹs internet presence and placed it at the forefront of digital journalism. For example, ʺHack Daysʺ brought together journalists and developers for the first time to create new ways of communicating, and experimentation with new digital ideas resulted in the best concepts being tried and tested by the Guardian at the iconic South by Southwest festival in Texas. GNM’s innovative approach to digital media ensures that it punches well above its weight not only in terms of web reporting but also in its use of Twitter, blogging, social media, and liveblogging (which was used to cover such diverse stories as the Arab Spring and UK Arts Council cuts).

The Guardian has an established reputation in the online community for innovation and creativity and was one of the first non-US organizations to win a Webby (2005). By 2010, The Guardian had the largest web readership of any English-language newspaper bar The New York Times. The strong performance of the Guardianʹs flagship website, www.guardian.co.uk, reflects the high standard of the newspaperʹs journalism and its increasingly significant digital profile (with a daily average of 2.7 million unique browsers). Recent success in launching the Guardianʹs iPhone app indicates that Guardian News and Media’s digital strategy is on track, and the Group is planning further digital launches - including a major expansion in the United States with a new, digital-only operation based in New York.

In addition to its commitment to digital technology and journalistic excellence and integrity, Guardian News and Media takes its mission of corporate social responsibility very seriously. The Group is considered a leader in sustainability and has developed a program in partnership with Forum for the Future, a sustainable development organization, to investigate ten key areas of change. Sustainability has been reinforced across every organization within the Group - including Carbon Trust certification for the two print sites and main office. The shift toward digital publication will further diminish the Groupʹs carbon footprint, but in a groundbreaking move the Group has gone one step further, partnering with the universities of Bristol and Surrey to understand and reduce its digital footprint.

The TLD will provide a digital home for information about all the previously-mentioned services as well as facilitate the future expansion of GNMʹs web presence while contributing to its environmental commitments. The TLD will make the Guardian digital platform more easily accessible, searchable, and locatable and will help GNM enlarge the community of contributors by promoting and enabling user interaction. The launch of the TLD falls squarely within GNMʹs mission of empowerment, innovation and engagement and will allow GNM to achieve its goals of digital innovation, outreach, and growth while reinforcing its credibility and reputation for uncompromised excellence.

GNM has selected the string .gdn as it is a short, instantly recognizable abbreviation for the term “guardian” over which Guardian News and Media holds Trademark rights. GNM increasingly employs the use of “gdn” in its digital media presence and seeks to expand the gdn brand under the GNM umbrella as its digital representative and voice. GNM has successfully employed and leveraged the gdn brand digitally and especially on Twitter, where it currently operates multiple handles including @gdnlaw, @gdnvoluntary, @GdnMediaNetwork, @gdnseminars, @GdnLocalGov, and @GdnHealthcare. The gdn brand is thus intrinsically related to and associated with GNM and its product and service offerings.

GNM will retain domains for internal Group use, providing an innovative platform for the GNMʹs various brands as they expand globally. The TLD will allow GNM to prepare for the future of the digital landscape, and its use will include but is not limited to websites, emails, online applications, online transactions, social media, directories and any new usages of domain names. This platform for innovation will not only promote and protect the GNMʹs brands but also ensure the effective organization of the Group’s domain name structure, technical security, and stability of its internet presence, promoting continued innovation to an increasing consumer base without compromise.

gTLD	Full Legal Name	E-mail suffix	Detail
.now	Grand Turn, LLC	donuts.co	View

Q18A CHAR: 7985

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.

DONUTS’ PLACE WITHIN ICANN’S MISSION
ICANN and the new TLD program share the following purposes:
1. to make sure that the Internet remains as safe, stable and secure as possible, while
2. helping to ensure there is a vibrant competitive marketplace to efficiently bring the benefits of the namespace to registrants and users alike.

ICANN harnesses the power of private enterprise to bring forth these public benefits. While pursuing its interests, Donuts helps ICANN accomplish its objectives by:

1. Significantly widening competition and choice in Internet identities with hundreds of new top-level domain choices;
2. Providing innovative, robust, and easy-to-use new services, names and tools for users, registrants, registrars, and registries while at the same time safeguarding the rights of others;
3. Designing, launching, and securely operating carefully selected TLDs in multiple languages and character sets; and
4. Providing a financially robust corporate umbrella under which its new TLDs will be protected and can thrive.

ABOUT DONUTS’ RESOURCES
Donuts’ financial resources are extensive. The company has raised more than US$100 million from a number of capital sources including multiple multi-billion dollar venture capital and private equity funds, a top-tier bank, and other well-capitalized investors. Should circumstances warrant, Donuts is prepared to raise additional funding from current or new investors. Donuts also has in place pre-funded, Continued Operations Instruments to protect future registrants. These resource commitments mean Donuts has the capability and intent to launch, expand and operate its TLDs in a secure manner, and to properly protect Internet users and rights-holders from potential abuse.

Donuts firmly believes a capable and skilled organization will operate multiple 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 and shared services model);
2. Competing more powerfully against incumbent gTLDs; and
3. More thoroughly and uniformly executing consumer and rights holder protections.

THIS 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.

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.

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.