.photography Pre-Register Domain - .photography Domain Information

Top Level Design, LLC's mission for .photography is to create a recognizable, viable, and profitable extension to bring together individuals, companies and other entities who are passionate about self-identifying through photography. ICANN's New gTLD Program is a revolutionary step in allowing users to use and identify with the Internet's naming system in a more personal and focused way. This focus on creating greater harmony between Internet activities, user interests, and the actual domain name, will be ideally fulfilled by a .photography TLD.

We recognize the power of the Internet to foster creative and artistic energy, and have enthusiastically noted how prevalent photography is shared and discussed throughout the Internet. This has been taken up by not only professional photographers but also amateur photographers and passionate individuals. Thus, we are excited to create a space that is open to both the professional photography market and to those individuals. The Internet continues to be a revolutionary medium for connecting people across time and space, and with regards to the photography market, it has allowed any interested party to show their work and passion with others. In this way, anyone with passion can become a photographer whose work is given space and can be appreciated by the world at large. Individuals who would not have previously had the opportunity to share their photographic passions with the world now have the chance via the Internet. We have noted how ICANN's New gTLD Program will further revolutionize and personalize the way in which a single individual interacts with others via the Internet. That is, people will be able to clearly label and identify their online actions and interests via a specific TLD. Companies and professional photographers will also have equal access to showcase their own work and facilitate greater online commercial activity within the photography industry. Given that ICANN includes individual end-users and commercial interests in its forums and decisions, and that the New gTLD Program allows harmonization of online interests with top level identification, it seems only natural that photographers and the photography industry be provided a TLD that caters to them. This space will allow them to continue to innovate the world of online photography, and further the appreciation, dissemination, and discussion of all forms of photography.

It is Top Level Design, LLC's goal to make the .photography TLD a viable and profitable business. We believe this to be the most likely scenario, and the projections and financial analysis included in this application demonstrate such. We hope to grow at a rate that allows us to continually improve our registry offerings and increase benefits for both our customers and employees. However, our commitments and projections at this time are focused on conservatively estimating our revenue in order to best prepare for a TLD market with the possibility of many more TLDs.

i.) What is the goal of your proposed gTLD in terms of areas of specialty, service levels, or reputation?

It is our expectation that .photography will be primarily used by professional photographers, photo enthusiasts, and companies. We do not intend to limit the gTLD to a specific community within the international photography scene. We believe that "photography" is a widely understood word and concept, and that the average Internet user will understand that the content of a .photography domain will be geared towards the expression and pursuit of photographic endeavors.

We hope to create an esteemed reputation throughout the various parts of the photography world by garnering the support of prominent photography organizations, schools, photographers, galleries, and other cultural institutions involved in the production, dissemination, and appreciation of photography. This will be achieved before and after our launch and as an aspect of a comprehensive marketing strategy. By securing endorsements from these organizations, and by getting them to create an online presence in the .photography TLD, we hope to solidify a positive and recognizable reputation as the best TLD option for those involved in photography. However, while we firmly believe that these endorsements may help our marketing efforts, what ultimately matters most is the reputation created throughout the entire photography industry, and not with specific well-known members. Thus, we will focus on creating a safe and secure space that is targeted at all relevant users and not some sections thereof; we believe that pursuing this bottom-up model is not only in the best interest of the productive development of the .photography TLD, but that it also further underscores the importance of the bottom-up, multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance.

ii.) What do you anticipate your proposed gTLD will add to the current space, in terms of areas of competition, differentiation, or innovation?

A .photography TLD will allow continued growth and innovation within the online photography world and more generally within the photography industry as a whole. It will allow individuals and companies whose primary online interests revolve around photography to create a clear and meaningful distinction between this activity and their domain name. The .photography TLD will create a space that is entirely devoted to the appreciation, discussion, and dissemination of photography.

Implementing .photography into the root zone is not only necessary due to the scarcity of desirable domains in the Internet's most prominent TLDs, but further necessitated by the size and diversity of the international photography market. Photography does not cleanly fit into any of the current gTLDs: for example, it is not necessarily a "commercial," "organized," "informational," or "business" endeavor. Further, given that photography can transcend national boundaries, it also does not fit well into the purview of ccTLDs. Thus, the .photography TLD will provide a competitive alternative for those with the primary interest of making, appreciating, or facilitating photography; these companies and individuals will no longer have to choose a domain due to necessity and constraint but will have the chance to create a meaningful association between their domain name and its photography-related content. We also believe that creating a .photography TLD will facilitate more dialogue and educational opportunities than any other current TLD.

This does not mean we expect that all photography-centric sites will want to move to a .photography extension. Many companies and professionals may think that their commercial photography business is better served by .com, or that their non-profit photography program is at home in .org. Consequently, by adding a .photography to the root zone, ICANN will be improving existing TLDs by allowing them to become more focused on their intended significance, while simultaneously providing a differentiated and specific extension for those who identify first with photography. This will certainly facilitate more TLD competition, and allow the current offerings to become significantly more differentiated than they currently are.

iii.) What goals does your proposed gTLD have in terms of user experience?
Top Level Design, LLC believes the .photography extension is largely self-explanatory and its content is readily apparent to both potential registrants and end-consumers. We hope that the Internet experience of both types of users will therefore be enhanced and simplified by the implementation of .photography into the root zone. Registrants will have the opportunity to clearly, and we hope proudly, identify themselves as a photographer, a photo specialist, or photography enthusiast. Internet users browsing and using sites with a .photography extension will be confident that the website they are navigating will be related to photography. We hope that this interaction between content providers and content consumers will allow the Internet's photo-centric userbase to work in greater concert and to strengthen their connections globally.

We will create a safe and secure TLD, and believe that this is the most important way to ensure that our users have positive experiences when using .photography.

iv.) Provide a complete description of the applicant's intended registration policies in support of the goals listed above.

We intend to offer .photography domains through ICANN-accredited registrars, using an open registration policy that requires no verification of any certification, training, or other quantifiable measure of merit. Through targeted marketing efforts and niche pricing levels, we expect to see that a large majority of the domains registered will be by those with plans to develop sites related to photography. In this way, we are insuring the .photography TLD will be open to all individuals and companies that identify through photography, while still maintaining a strongly delineated space.

We will fully implement the requirements made by the ICANN Board with regards to the Trademark Clearinghouse, URS, Trademark PDDRP, RRDRP, and UDRP. We believe the these measures have been suitably developed to prevent defensive registrations, bad faith registrations, and other malicious registrations.

v.) 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.

As per the current requirements in Section 4 of the Registry Agreement, we will implement all necessary thick WHOIS services. We recognize how imperative it is for each registry and ICANN-accredited registrar to be in full compliance with ICANN's current WHOIS standards, and we plan to update our policy in accordance with any future measures taken by the ICANN Board in regard to the continuous work by the GNSO's WHOIS Task Force and other recommendations from the SOs. We have no plans to implement any privacy or confidential measures other than fully implementing any and all such measures as required by ICANN.

i. How will multiple applications for a particular domain name be resolved, for example, by auction or on a first-come/first-serve basis?

About six months following the signing of the registry agreement, we will hold a standard Sunrise Period reserved for those entities with appropriate IP and Trademark claims, which we anticipate to last about 3 months. Then, after the conclusion of the Sunrise Period, we will hold a Landrush Period that will be open to the public, and which will last a few weeks to a month. At the conclusion of each period we will hold closed auctions for the domains that have been applied for by more than one party. We anticipate separating the end of the Sunrise from the beginning of the Landrush by a few weeks.

For general availability of the .photography TLD following the sunrise and landrush periods, we will be operating on a first-come, first-served basis. However, we reserve the right to create a list of domain names within our .photography TLD to be set aside and then sold or auctioned off to interested parties. We have included auction related revenue in the first year of operations of our financial projections.

ii.) Explain any cost benefits for registrants you intend to implement (e.g. advantageous pricing, introductory discounts, bulk registration discounts).

We have no plans to implement any cost benefits for registrants at this time. However, we have discussed the possibility of promotions, such as bulk registration discounts and advantageous pricings, should they be necessitated due to currently unforeseen circumstances or become part of a targeted marketing campaign during any part of our launch.

iii.) Note that the Registry Agreement requires that registrars be offered the option to obtain initial domain name registrations for periods of one to ten years at the discretion of the registrar, but no greater than ten years. Additionally, the Registry Agreement requires advance written notice of price increases. Do you intend to make contractual commitments to registrants regarding the magnitude of price escalation? If so, please describe your plans.

We intend to fully comply with the provisions in the Registry Agreement stating that registration being made available by our registrars for a period of one to ten years, while not exceeding ten years.

Wholesale price increases may be necessary due to inflation or other unforeseen circumstances. However, we recognize that it is important to protect registrants from unreasonable price increases, and therefore plan not to exceed the industry-precedented reasonable maximum annual wholesale price increase of 10%. As dictated by the Registry Agreement, we plan to provide ICANN and ICANN-accredited registrars 30 days written notice for price increases on initial domain name registrations, and 180 days for domain name renewals, excepting the provisions stated in Article 2, Section 10(b) and (c), which we shall follow as they are described. We plan to give written notice of at least 90 days to our registrants of such increases. We have no plans at this time to make further contractual commitments to our registrants regarding wholesale price escalation, but do intend to follow the best practices set forth by the industry and treat our registrants with respect, both financially and otherwise. We do not anticipate the need for significant price increases and are equally likely to lower the price in the future.

We plan to work with the GAC to protect their interests in country codes, country names, and major cities at the second level via a reserve list, as per the ʺGAC Principles Regarding New gTLDs" document of March 28, 2007, and per any forthcoming mandates from the GAC as approved by the ICANN Board. Pursuant to the specification provided in ICANNʹs Applicant Guidebook, the list will include country and territory names based on the following internationally recognized lists:

• the short form (in English) of all country and territory names contained on the ISO 3166-1 list;
• the 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
• 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;

As the above documents get updated from time to time, the exact list of reserved names will be compiled shortly before the TLD launch to account for any updates. The list of reserved names will be published on the Registry website. We recognize that we may need future permission from the GAC, its members, and the ICANN Board to use certain names.

Given the precedent of the .info TLD as described in the document "GAC Chair circular letter on Reservation of Country Names in Dot Info, ICANN Board Resolutions of 10 September 2001 and 14 March 2002" from September 9, 2003, we will protect/reserve the above described names for a suitable amount of time following the launch of the TLD, during which time we will encourage governments to register their country-specific domains. We look forward to working with all GAC representatives in order to ensure that their representation under the .photography TLD is suitable to their wants and needs. Domains that are not permanently reserved or registered will be made available to the general public after securing any necessary permissions.

For ongoing operation, we will implement procedures that allow governments, public authorities, or IGOs to challenge potential abuses of names with national or geographic significance at the second level or other levels. Such procedures may include the blocking of offending domains in a system similar to URS. We intend to respect standard, ICANN-approved arbitration practices that consider both the registrant and the objecting government's rights and concerns.