.wang Pre-Register Domain - .wang Domain Information

Zodiac Holdings Limited ("Zodiac") was founded and incorporated in Cayman Islands by James Seng in 2008 in anticipation of the launch of the ICANN new gTLD program. Currently, it is headquartered in Hong Kong and has an operation center in Beijing, China. The team consists of experienced veterans in the global and China domain name industry like James Seng and former China Network Information Center (CNNIC) employees such as Eugene Li.

James Seng is one of the Internet pioneers in Singapore and is widely recognized as an international expert in numerous Internet areas. He is well known as the inventor of IDN and has co-chaired the IDN Working Group in IETF from 1999 to 2004, leading to the standardization of IDN.

Eugene Li, is the former Vice President of China Network Information Center (CNNIC). During his 7 years tenure at CNNIC, Eugene has launched initiatives that doubled domain name registrations and helped CNNIC become the no. 1 ccTLD and no. 2 TLD by volume. At the time when Eugene left to join Zodiac, CNNIC has over 13 million domain name registrations.

Under the vision and leadership of James Seng, with the support of angels, venture capital firm and family offices of approximately USD 20 million in place for the application and operation of the new gTLDs, Zodiac is seeking to become the first and largest privately held ICANN-approved TLD registry operator in Asia. It intends to operate TLDs that are centric to the Chinese culture.

Asia is currently contributing 44.8% to the global 2.2 billion Internet users population (http://www.Internetworldstats.com/stats.htm). Yet, the penetration of Internet users relative to the population is only 26.2%, significantly lower than regions like Europe and America. The gap indicates potential of growth in the coming years as the region continues to develop. In addition, all of the currently available TLDs are operated either by country governments or non-profit organizations. Zodiac believes that the existence of a privately held commercial registry operator would not only help to create healthy market competition but also introduce innovations for the region. Furthermore, no other TLD specifically targets this region other than ".asia", a non-profit sponsored TLD. The introduction of IDN ccTLDs has helped open opportunities for new TLDs that are more precise in purpose and identity, e.g. .中国 for the country China.

With Chinese being the major population in this region, Zodiac, through its wholly owned subsidiaries and equity affiliates (please refer to the attachment for Zodiac's holding structure) is applying for 15 new gTLDs in Chinese or strings that have strong relevance to this Chinese Internet community. While different entities would be used for each application, a single business team under Zodiac will be operating all of ICANN's approved gTLDs. Zodiac expects its 15 new gTLDs to grow from 437,541 in the 1st year of operation to 898,147 by the 3rd year.

To support such a vision technically, Zodiac is partnering with KNET Co Ltd ("KNET" or "Back-End Service Provider"). KNET is founded and established in November 2009 by a team of leading developers and experts under the purview of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with the objective to setup and operate a secure Registry service plus a Central Internet Exchange.

Since its inception, KNET has been involved across various domestic and international registry-related technical standards forums. Currently KNET has been actively contributing to the development of the Internet keyword addressing series such as technical standards, technical standards for protection of security of the domain name industry standards.

Within the short span of founding in 2009, KNET is already being recognized as one of the National High-Tech Enterprises, achieved numerous enterprise software certifications and has assembled an experienced team of experts in internet technologies, security, marketing and operations. Key members of the management team are highly experienced in top-level domain name operations having previously involved in the .CHINA IDN ccTLD application, setup and operations.
For this application, Zodiac Leo Limited ("the Applicant"), a wholly owned subsidiary of Zodiac is applying for ".wang". For ease of reading, "wang" will be referred to as "STRING" in the remaining part of this application.

The Applicant's vision for ".STRING" is to be a connected namespace for everyone that want to attract and serve the Chinese Internet population and help promote innovation, participation and collaboration among them.

Unfortunately, due to restriction of the new gTLD applicant Guidebook, the Applicant is not allowed to pursue its more favorable single-char IDN string ".网". Instead, the Applicant will have to adopt its hanyu pinyin (a way to transcribe Chinese characters into Latin script) form "STRING" which means "website or portal". To the Chinese community, "STRING" is commonly used to append to names or generic terms to refer to the website or portal of those names. For example, the name of sina.com.cn website in Chinese is pronounced as 新浪网 xin lang "wang" ("网" being the last word).

A lot of Internet related terms in Chinese already contain this character. For example, network is known as "STRING" + luo, Internet community is "STRING" + min etc. This high level of occurrence of this "STRING" term implies a general acceptance by and stickiness in the memory of the Chinese Internet community if there is such a ".STRING" gTLD.

One of ".STRING" objectives is to make it easier for the Chinese Internet population to access and use the Internet. Today, as fewer and fewer premium domain names are available, companies and individuals have to come up with longer and less intuitive domain names in ".com" or other related TLDs. To the Chinese, where English is a second language, remembering long domain names is very tedious.

".STRING" is meant to add variety to the current available offering of TLDs. Its purpose is to serve the Chinese Internet population just as how ".com" is serving the English Internet population. Having a specific target audience in mind also helps providers servicing this group to customize their services and products better. Even returns on marketing will be higher due to the presence of such a useful targeted ".STRING" gTLD.

On a global scale, the introduction of ".STRING" gTLD allows any Chinese Internet user (not just limited to China) to have an online identity that can be more familiar and can associate with. It also helps to promote various aspects of Chinese culture to the rest of the non-Chinese Internet population.

The Applicant expects ".STRING" to initially reach about 104,098 in the 1st year, and grow to 148,712 and 208,196 by the 2nd and 3rd year respectively.

The projection is based on a conservative estimate taking the following into consideration:
total number of domain names registered in China across all TLDs
proportion of total number of domain names registered in China that are in Chinese
ICANN benchmarking of registry operations, Feb. 2010
price point for ".STRING" and how the China market would react based on the team's experience in China
initial growth of existing gTLDs in China

The pricing for ".STRING" is intentionally set at relatively higher price to other gTLDs as the Applicant envisions ".STRING" to be adopted as the gTLD of choice for a selective group of the Chinese Internet community.

The Applicant will have Sunrise process prior to opening the general registration to ensure that the relevant rights owners have their first rights to their names. Landrush period will also be introduced to cater for the ardent aspirant registrants. The Applicant will have additional protection for geographic names and trade marks. Details are described in the answers to Q.22, 28 and 29.

As mentioned in Question 18(a), the applied-for string is meant to serve the Chinese Internet community. The applicant intends to make ".STRING" domain name as a commonly used unified identifier to be used in Chinese communities.

In terms of the service level, the Applicant has selected KNET as the back-end service provider due to its business and technical expertise in the Chinese domain name registry industry.

The KNET Shared Registry Platform ("KSRP") is designed, implemented and operated to provide high availability, secure, robust and scalable registry services. KSRP shall fully conform to, and exceed the Registry Performance Specifications (Specification 10 of the gTLD Registry Agreement).

When it comes to the reputation of the ".STRING" TLD, the Applicant would strive to make the ".STRING" domain names as the most commonly used and affordable string in the market, making it as a necessity and meaningful substitute for the ".COM" in the Chinese Internet Ecosystem.


What do you anticipate your proposed TLD will add to the current space, in terms of competition, differentiation, or innovation?

The proposed TLD will add up variety and competition to the current space. Adding up ".STRING" and hundreds of new TLDs in this virtually unlimited space will give consumers more choices to label their distinct identity or multiple identities on the Internet. Furthermore, adding up more generic TLDs will greatly stimulate the competition in this market. The registrants and Internet users enjoy better services with more favorable price.

How to survive in this competitive environment? The key lies in differentiation and innovation. ".STRING" TLD will differentiate itself to the rest TLD strings, making it a genuine TLD for Chinese Internet communities only. ".STRING" TLD is positioned to provide localized service to Chinese users on the Internet. The ".STRING" TLD will dedicated to foster the development and innovation in Chinese Internet community by providing user-friendly domain names with competitive price.

What goals your proposed gTLD have in terms of user experience?

The Applicant believes that ".STRING" as a gTLD will achieve the following goal in terms of user experience:

Ease of use and remembering:
".STRING" is an ASCII suffix, yet it is widely recognized as the Pinyin for "websites" for Chinese Internet users. With the introduction of ".STRING" to the Chinese TLD market, the Chinese Internet community will use and memorize the domain name with ease, which will in turn greatly simplify and facilitate the adoption and utilization of this domain name and the access to the Internet by Chinese Internet users.

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

In summary, the registration policy for ".STRING" TLD will be designed as such to reflect the mission and purpose of this specialized domain:

Open Registration

".STRING" is open to registration by any company and individual.

String Policy

Domain names can contain the English-language letters A through Z, the digits 0 through 9 and hyphens (LDH -- Letters, Digits, Hyphens).

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 -

Hyphens however cannot be used for the first or last character of the second level domain name. Spaces and special characters (such as !, $, &, é, and so on) are not currently acceptable. The maximum number of LDH characters accepted for a second level domain is 63.

Furthermore, Chinese IDN characters are also allowed to register at the sub-level. Please refer to answer to Question 44 for the applicable IDN characters and its registration policies.


WHOIS Policy

".STRING" shall operate as a ʺthickʺ registry, in which all of the information associated with registered entities, including both technical information and social information is stored within a central registry repository.

The Applicant shall abide with any relevant ICANN WHOIS Policy.

Others

UDRP and URS as described in the answer to Question 29
Sunrise and Landrush process as describe in the answer to Question 29
Geographic name restriction as described in answer to Question 22
Trademark protection as describe in answer to Question 29
Domain Name Lifecycle as describe in answer to Question 27
Data Privacy as describe in Question 18(c) below
Reserved and Blacklist label as describe in the answer to Question 22 and 29

Will your proposed TLD impose any measures for protecting the privacy or confidential information of registrants or users? If so, please describe any such measures.

The Applicant will adopt appropriate policies to protect the privacy of registrants and its domain name users in line with the policies by ICANN as well as the privacy regulation of the Hong Kong which the Applicant is incorporated.

As such policy and regulation may be modified in the future; the Applicant will also amend its privacy policy accordingly.

Specifically, the Applicant is subjected to the Hong Kong Ordinance No 81 of 1995 known as "Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance". In brief, the Applicant shall
indicate to the registrant what's the purpose of the personal information collected would be used for and how it would be used.
only use personal data for the purpose as indicated to the registrant
allow registrant to request information the Applicant hold about them within 40 days of their requests. The Applicant may request registrant to prove their identity and pay a reasonable fee before such request is processed.
correct or delete the information if the registrants inform the Applicant of any inaccurate information.
impose additional requirements for third party to access the personal information
acknowledge that the registrants may sue the Applicant for damages results from the releasing data that the Applicant should have kept confidential or from any other breach of the Ordinance.

In general, the Applicant stipulates how the personal information will be collected and used and how the WHOIS information will be displayed. Any information other than the WHOIS shall not be collected and used. No personal information will be collected without the consent of the registrants and the registrants shall have the Rights to Confidential, Rights to Knowledge, Rights to Opt-out/Change Data/Prohibit Use.

The information submitted by the registrants shall be regarded as classified information and shall be processed by specially designated personnel. Without the written consent of registrants, the information collected cannot be used in the way other than WHOIS purpose.

The back-end service provider shall deploy security measures to protect the integrity of the database against potential stealth or unintended leakage. Please refer to answer to Question 30 for more information in this regard.

Describe whether and in what ways outreach and communication will help to achieve your projected benefits.

During the application, the Applicant will reach out to the registrars serving the Chinese community (particularly in China) to seek their support. There are only small numbers of ICANN accredited registrars in the region and the Applicant will have private meetings with these registrars. Additionally, the Applicant will also seek out other domain name resellers and encourage them to become ICANN accredited registrars so as to be eligible to participate in the launch of ".STRING".

Prior to the successful application of ".STRING", the Applicant shall begin early communication via press releases and media interviews within the Chinese media to ensure companies and individuals would be well-informed of the pending launch of ".STRING". The Applicant may take pre-registration to gauge the demand but will not accept any advance payment.

After the Applicant has signed the registry agreement with ICANN, the Applicant will embark on a 30 days targeted marketing campaign to ensure companies and trademark owners participate in the ".STRING" Sunrise. The Applicant shall provide a code of conduct to its marketing partners to prevent any spam abuse or misrepresentation of ".STRING" sunrise.

Following the ".STRING" sunrise, the Applicant shall organize a Landrush ceremony in China and/or Hong Kong, inviting partners (e.g. registrars) as well as media representatives. The Applicant will also begin the extensive marketing, including online and offline advertising. The Landrush marketing effort will also last another 60 days.

After the launch of ".STRING", the Applicant, from time to time, will embark on marketing and communication campaign to promote the utilization and adoption of ".STRING". The Applicant will also actively seek out ingenious usage of ".STRING" and to work with them to promote the awareness and positive use of ".STRING".

".STRING" is meant to be target the mass Chinese Internet community. As such, the Applicant will adopt commonly adopted policy and practices as so far as possible such that the community has more familiarity and less learning curve.

".STRING" will have Sunrise and Landrush processes prior to opening the general registration to ensure the relevant rights owners have their first rights to their names. The Applicant will also adopt the Trademark Clearing House to reduce cybersquatting. Furthermore, the Applicant will have additional protection for geographic names. Details of these protections are described in the answer to Question 29.

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

The Applicant will seek to adopt commonly adopted practices in the handling of multiple application of a particular domain name.

During Landrush period, multiple eligible applications for a particular domain name will be resolved using auction. The Applicant may engage a third party domain name auction partner to conduct the auction process.
After Landrush period, multiple eligible applications for a particular domain name will be handled on a first-come first-served policy.
If there are any disputes, it will be resolved according to the principles of UDRP.

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

The Applicant intends to implement promotion discounts and bulk registration discounts for the registrars and registrants. Depending on the market condition and competitions, the Applicant may offer deep discount or even free registrations. These discounts will be implemented to match the respective marketing and promotion campaign.

The pricing policy for ".STRING" and its promotion or bulk discounts will be clearly published on the Applicant's website. The pricing policy will be offered to all ICANN accredited registrars. The Applicant will not engage in preferential discounts.

Note that the Registry Agreement requires that registrars be offered the option to obtain initial domain name registrations for period 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.

The Applicant will make contractual commitments to the Registrars that the wholesale price increase would not be more than 10% per annum to offset the increase in operation cost. The Applicant further makes commitment that affected registrars will have at least 6 months advance notice of any pending price adjustment.

If the Applicant intends to make a significant price increase (more than 10% per annum) for sustainability and continuity, the Applicant will make its case for ICANN review. The Applicant will cooperate with ICANN with any public consultation process. The Applicant is aware that ICANN may or may not grant such significant price adjustment on its own discrete.

The Applicant will offer optional multi year registrations, for up to ten years. Any registrants who make advance payment for multi year registrations will not be affected by any price adjustment during the period they had made advance payment for.

To minimize any potential abuse of geographic names and to mitigate confusion and dispute, the Applicant would reserve geographic names under ".STRING".

22.1 The reservation list

22.1.1 Reserved list specific to Application Guidebook

As per the Specification 5 of the Registry Agreement, the Applicant shall put the following geographic names on reservation. The reserved geographic names are:

Country and Territory Names. The country and territory names contained in the following internationally recognized lists shall be initially reserved at the second level and at all other levels within the TLD at which the Registry Operator provides for registrations:
* the short form (in English) of all country and territory names contained on the ISO 3166-1 list, as updated from time to time, including the European Union, which is exceptionally reserved on the ISO 3166-1 list, and its scope extended in August 1999 to any application needing to represent the name European Union 〈http://www.iso.org/iso/support/country_codes/iso_3166_code_lists/iso-3166-1_decoding_table.htm#EU〉;
* 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;

Regional or Continental Names. The names are listed as a UNESCO region on the UNESCO website (see http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/worldwide/) or appearing on the "composition of macro geographical (continental) regions, geographical sub-regions, and selected economic and other groupings" (see http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm).

22.1.2 Reserved list specific to China

In addition to the reserved list in the Application Guidebook, the Applicant may also reserve additional names as required by China regulations where the Applicant operates. The names lists includes but not limited to:
* The names (both in English and in Chinese) of the provinces and municipalities of China, including complete form and short form as well as unofficial abbreviation of the geographic names.
* The names (both in English and in Chinese) of the sub-regions of the provinces and the names of the counties in China.

22.2. Procedures to release the reserved lists specific to Application Guidebook

The reserved geographic names may be released to the extent that the Applicant reaches agreement with the applicable government or public authority. The release of the geographic names shall follow the below described procedures.

22.2.1 The release of country and territory names

1. The Government or public authority concerned informs the GAC Secretariat of their request to register the name, and the designated beneficiary.
2. The GAC Secretariat authenticates the request and transfers it to the ICANN staff and to the Applicant.
3. The Applicant verifies the availability of the name and issues an authorization letter that is transmitted directly to the designated.
4. The designated beneficiary registers the name, with an accredited registrar, using the authorization letter as their authority.

22.2.2 The release of reserved list specific to China

1. The relevant local government or public authority issues an official supporting documentation to the designated beneficiary.
2. The designated beneficiary registers the name, with an accredited registrar using the official supporting documentation.