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

Prototypical answer:

The City of New York (“the City”) believes that the proposed .nyc gTLD is consistent with the vision and mission described in its Road Map for the Digital City, and has the potential to enable a variety of benefits to the government, organizations, businesses, and residents. These potential benefits include, but are not limited to:  a source of New York City-specific information and online e-commerce for the millions of people who visit the City; business opportunities, leisure activities, or services for City residents; short and memorable Internet addresses and the increased ability to identify authentic New York City resources, businesses and information. The City also views the .nyc gTLD as a means to: enhance City resident, business and visitor access to government services; enable community communications and collaboration; help local businesses to market and thrive; and promote New York City overall.

18.2.1    What is the goal of your proposed gTLD in terms of areas of specialty, service levels, or reputation?
The goal of the .nyc gTLD to is provide New York City government, organizations, businesses and residents an online identity that intuitively associates them with The City of New York.  The City also views the .nyc gTLD as an enabler of community organization, collaboration and communications.

The City, through its selected registry services provider, Neustar, intends to provide a high level of service, and an approach that preserves the integrity of the .nyc gTLD (e.g. nexus requirements and pricing that discourages malicious use).

18.2.2    What do you anticipate your proposed gTLD will add to the current space, in terms of competition, differentiation, or innovation?
The City of New York anticipates that the .nyc gTLD will enable a new level of integrity to the current space, providing benefits to New York City-based business, organizations, communities and individuals seeking to exchange information, services and goods specific to the City of New York. Through requirements, regulation and enforcement, the .nyc gTLD will help to identify the local New York City origin of information, services and goods to web consumers.

For local businesses and organizations seeking ways to effectively reach local customers, the .nyc gTLD, as supported by the planned Nexus policy, will provide organizations and businesses a means to identify themselves as being associated with The City of New York.

In addition, in collaboration with community-based organizations, the City of New York will reserve selected .nyc community-related names to provide a framework for authentic, local civic engagement. These reserved names will provide a structured, trusted, scalable means for finding and sharing community-related information, events, activities and services across the five boroughs of the City of New York.

The current domain name system has shown that it is vulnerable to malicious abuses due to registration of domain names which seek to exploit consumer confusion. The City will address some of these vulnerabilities by maintaining an active domain name abuse monitoring program that will include the takedown of abusive domain names, the enforcement of a meaningful Nexus policy and measures to promote Whois accuracy as further described in the City’s response to Question 28. In addition, since those involved in malicious behavior often seek domain names in gTLDs with low pricing, the City believes its pricing strategy will help to discourage such use.

18.2.3    What goals does your proposed gTLD have in terms of user experience?
The .nyc gTLD will enhance user navigation by providing an identifier that closely identifies a website with The City of New York. In addition, short memorable .nyc domain names will enable users (including, but not limited to, tourists planning a trip to the City, citizens seeking government information or services, businesses seeking suppliers or partners, researchers looking for information related to the City) to more easily remember the Internet address or intuitively navigate to a relevant website.

18.2.4    Provide a complete description of the applicant’s intended registration policies in support of the goals listed above.
The City intends for registrations in the .nyc gTLD to be limited to individuals, businesses, or organizations with a substantive and lawful connection to the City and with a primary residence or genuine physical presence in New York City. In furtherance of this policy, the City, through its selected registry services provider, shall implement the following registration policies:
1. .nyc Nexus Policy
2. Acceptable Use Policy
3. Reserved Names
4. Rights Protection Mechanisms
5. ICANN Consensus Policies

1. .nyc Nexus Policy
The City desires to have only those individuals or entities having a substantive and lawful connection to the City be permitted to register for .nyc domain names (“Nexus Policy”). Nexus compliance is a critical element in ensuring the integrity and reliability of the .nyc gTLD. Each registrant will be required to certify compliance with at least one of the Nexus categories before the domain is ever registered.

All .nyc Registrants must either be:
(i) a natural person whose primary place of domicile is in the City of New York; or
(ii) an entity or organization that has a bona fide presence in the City of New York. Factors that will be considered in determining whether an entity or organization has bona fide presence in the City will include, without limitation, whether such prospective registrant:
(A) regularly performs lawful activities within the City related to the purposes for which the entity or organization is constituted (e.g. selling goods or providing services to customers, conducting regular training activities, attending conferences), provided such activities are not conducted solely or primarily to permit it to register for a .nyc domain name;
(B) maintains an office or other facility in the City for a lawful business, noncommercial, educational or governmental purpose, and not solely or primarily to permit it to register for a .nyc domain name; and
(C) regularly performs lawful activities outside of the City; provided that such activities relate to, or are primarily directed towards residents, tourists, businesses and organizations within the City (e.g. online content related to the City).

In addition, the City will conduct random spot checks of .nyc domain names to determine whether their owners satisfy the applicable Nexus Category.

Domains will be manually reviewed for accuracy of the WHOIS information, and any domain found to contain patently inaccurate information or where there is a high likelihood of a nexus violation will be flagged for further investigation. The sponsoring Registrars of these domain names will be notified of the investigation and the registrants will be required to provide additional evidence that they meet the Nexus requirements.

The City will also provide a mechanism through which the public can submit complaints of abusive .nyc ownership.

Thirty days after forwarding the complaint to the registrar, the current WHOIS data for names that were alleged to be inaccurate will be examined to determine if the information was corrected, the domain name was deleted, or there was some other disposition. If the Registrar has failed to take any action, or it is clear that the Registrant was either unwilling or unable to correct the inaccuracies, the City will have the right to suspend the applicable domain name(s) until such time as the registrant is able to cure the deficiencies.

2. nyc Acceptable Use Policy
The City will adopt an Acceptable Use Policy that clearly defines the types of activities that will not be permitted in the .nyc TLD and will reserve the right of the to lock, cancel, transfer or otherwise suspend or take down domain names violating the Acceptable Use Policy. Each ICANN-accredited registrar must agree to pass through the Acceptable Use Policy to its resellers (if applicable) and ultimately to the gTLD registrants. The Acceptable Use Policy, which is further set out in the City’s response to Question 28, prohibits malicious and abusive domain name activities such as phishing, pharming, dissemination of malware, fast flux hosting, hacking, botnetting, child pornography and other fraudulent and illegal activities.

3. Reserved names
The City will have a “reserved names” program aimed at ensuring the value of specific names are realized in terms of utility and revenue generation. The reserved names list will include names that the City believes will: assist residents in locating City government information and services; help businesses and organizations to thrive; facilitate community organization, collaboration and communication; promote tourism and economic development; and prevent user confusion. The City, with the assistance of Neustar, will conduct community outreach to assist with the creation of the final list prior to entering into the agreement with ICANN.

The types of names the City will reserve fall into four distinct categories:
A) names reserved by ICANN for the stability and security of the Internet;
B) names permanently reserved for use by the City or related entities;
C) names reserved for marketing and business development; and
D) names that match, contain misspellings of or are recognizable variations of any of the seven words identified in Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978).

A. Names Reserved by ICANN. The City will comply with Specification 5 of the Registry Agreement requiring it to reserve (i.e., not register, delegate, use of otherwise make available such labels to any third party, but may register such labels in its own name in order to withhold them from delegation or use) certain names. These include:
* The label ʺEXAMPLEʺ
* All two character labels will be initially reserved. Provisions for the release of these names is further described in relation to Question 22: Protection of Geographic Names.
* Tagged domain names (labels with a hyphen (ʺ-ʺ) in the third or fourth positions), which will only be allowed if they represent a valid internationalized domain name (IDN) in their ASCII encoding.
* Second level names for registry operations, defined by ICANN as: NIC, WWW, IRIS, and WHOIS.
* Country and territory names listed on the following internationally recognized lists will be initially reserved:
1. the ISO 3166-1 list including the short form and long form English versions;
2. United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names, Technical Reference manual for the Standardization of Geographical Names, Part III Names of Countries of the World; and
3. the list of United Nations member states in 6 official United Nations languages prepared by the Working Group on Country Names of the United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names

B. Names permanently reserved for use by the City or related entities. Prior to the launch of .nyc, the City will establish a list of reserved second-level domain names to reserve for its own use or disposal. These include names corresponding to: (i) City, State and Federal Government agencies and institutions located within the City; (ii) geographic names and neighborhood names within the City (e.g., Queens.nyc, Brooklyn.nyc, Manhattan.nyc, Staten Island.nyc and, Bronx.nyc); (iii) City trademarks, logos and slogans; and (iv) certain generic domains for use by the City for the benefit of its residents, local businesses and organizations as well as the millions of tourists and vacationers that visit the City each year (e.g., buses.nyc, trains.nyc, subway.nyc, taxi.nyc and weather.nyc). Some of these names will be set aside with the intention of developing them into websites for the benefit of the .nyc local Internet community.

C. Names reserved for marketing and business development. The City will reserve a number of domain names that are to be used by the City and its registry service provider to provide services to domain name registrars and registrants. These will include, but will not be limited to such names as getmy.nyc, about.nyc and buy.nyc. Premium, higher value names, may also be reserved for allocation to registrants using direct brokerage of names to registrants, an RFP process, auction(s) or other means. In each case, per ICANN policy, each of the reserved names that become registered will be registered through an ICANN-accredited registrar.

D. Restricted Names. Names that match, contain misspellings of, or are recognizable variations of, any of the seven words identified in Federal
Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). This is discussed further in the City’s response to Question 28.

4. Rights Protection Mechanisms
The City is committed to following all ICANN rules regarding protecting third party intellectual property rights within the .nyc gTLD. The City plans to implement all Rights Protection Mechanisms (“RPMs”) as required by ICANN. These RPMs include the following, which are further explained in the answers to Question 18 Part C and Question 29.
* Trademark Clearinghouse;
* Sunrise and Trademark Claims Processes;
* Implementation of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy; and
* Implementation of the Uniform Rapid Suspension mechanism.

5. ICANN Consensus Policies
The City is aware of and understands all current ICANN consensus policies listed at http:⁄⁄www.icann.org⁄en⁄general⁄consensus-policies.htm, and is committed to comply with all policies during its time as the registry operator for .nyc.

18.2.5    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.
The City recognizes firsthand that this is an evolving area of law in which there is no single international standard. However, the City has a vested interest in ensuring that accurate and current domain name information is readily available in connection with each .nyc domain name. .nyc will employ a variety of physical, electronic, contractual, and managerial safeguards to protect personal and confidential information within its premises and on its websites.  The City will take similar precautions to protect registrant and user data associated with the .nyc gTLD.

The City will ensure that the operation of the .nyc gTLD will be consistent with the City’s privacy policy found at http:⁄⁄www.nyc.gov⁄privacy.

In addition, the City intends to incorporate contractual language in its Registry-Registrar Agreement modeled after language which has been included in the template Registry Agreement and which has been successfully utilized by existing ICANN gTLD Registry Operators.

The template Registry Agreement states “Registry Operator shall (i) notify each ICANN-accredited registrar that is a party to the registry-registrar agreement for the TLD of the purposes for which data about any identified or identifiable natural person (“Personal Data”) submitted to Registry Operator by such registrar is collected and used under this Agreement or otherwise and the intended recipients (or categories of recipients) of such Personal Data, and (ii) require such registrar to obtain the consent of each registrant in the TLD for such collection and use of Personal Data. Registry Operator shall take reasonable steps to protect Personal Data collected from such registrar from loss, misuse, unauthorized disclosure, alteration or destruction. Registry Operator shall not use or authorize the use of Personal Data in a way that is incompatible with the notice provided to registrars.ʺ

18.2.6    Describe whether and in what ways outreach and communications will help to achieve your projected benefits.
To achieve the desired benefits, the City of New York will engage local community groups and organizations to to raise awareness,solicit input and
collaboratively develop a plan for community use of reserved .nyc gTLD names. Extensive marketing and communications will take place to ensure widespread awareness of .nyc and the associated benefits. The program may include, but will not be limited to, press releases, direct mail, email, online and traditional media advertising, and events.

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