.gmx New gTLD Application
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New gTLD Application Submitted to ICANN by: 1&1 Mail & Media GmbH
String: gmx
Originally Posted: 13 June 2012
Application ID: 1-1256-36701
Applicant Information
- Full legal name
1&1 Mail & Media GmbH
- Address of the principal place of business
Elgendorf Strasse 57
Montabaur 56410
DE
- Phone number
+49 721 91374 0
- Fax number
+49 721 91374 26825
- If applicable, website or URL
http:⁄⁄www.web.de
Primary Contact
6(a). Name
Mr. Thomas Keller
6(b). Title
Head of Product Management- Domains
6(c). Address
6(d). Phone Number
+49 721 91374 4534
6(e). Fax Number
6(f). Email Address
Secondary Contact
7(a). Name
Mr. Neal Kenneth McPherson
7(b). Title
Product Manager- Domains
7(c). Address
7(d). Phone Number
+49 721 91374 1862
7(e). Fax Number
7(f). Email Address
Proof of Legal Establishment
8(a). Legal form of the Applicant
GmbH - Gesellschaft mit beschraenkter Haftung
8(b). State the specific national or other jursidiction that defines the type of entity identified in 8(a).
1&1 Mail & Media GmbH is a registered GmbH according to the German Law GmbHG. See www.gesetze-im-internet.de⁄gmbhg⁄index.html
8(c). Attach evidence of the applicant's establishment.
Attachments are not displayed on this form.
9(a). If applying company is publicly traded, provide the exchange and symbol.
9(b). If the applying entity is a subsidiary, provide the parent company.
United Internet AG. Publicly traded on the TecDax: TECDAX WKN 508903
9(c). If the applying entity is a joint venture, list all joint venture partners.
Applicant Background
11(a). Name(s) and position(s) of all directors
Jan Oetjen Chairman-Portal
Markus Huhn Chairman-Finance
Matthias Ehrlich Chairman-Media Sales
11(b). Name(s) and position(s) of all officers and partners
11(c). Name(s) and position(s) of all shareholders holding at least 15% of shares
1&1 Internet AG Not Applicable
11(d). For an applying entity that does not have directors, officers, partners, or shareholders: Name(s) and position(s) of all individuals having legal or executive responsibility
Applied-for gTLD string
- Provide the applied-for gTLD string. If an IDN, provide the U-label.
gmx
14(a). If an IDN, provide the A-label (beginning with "xn--").
14(b). If an IDN, provide the meaning or restatement of the string in English, that is, a description of the literal meaning of the string in the opinion of the applicant.
14(c). If an IDN, provide the language of the label (in English).
14(c). If an IDN, provide the language of the label (as referenced by ISO-639-1).
14(d). If an IDN, provide the script of the label (in English).
14(d). If an IDN, provide the script of the label (as referenced by ISO 15924).
14(e). If an IDN, list all code points contained in the U-label according to Unicode form.
15(a). If an IDN, Attach IDN Tables for the proposed registry.
Attachments are not displayed on this form.
15(b). Describe the process used for development of the IDN tables submitted, including consultations and sources used.
15(c). List any variant strings to the applied-for gTLD string according to the relevant IDN tables.
- Describe the applicant's efforts to ensure that there are no known operational or rendering problems concerning the applied-for gTLD string. If such issues are known, describe steps that will be taken to mitigate these issues in software and other applications.
The applicant has duly verified that the applied for TLD string is in compliance with all relevant RFCs and Internet Standards as outlined in the Applicant Guide Book Section 2.2.1.32 String Requirements. The applied for string contains only ASCII characters no numbers and no hyphens and is in the acceptable range of 3 to 63 characters.
It has also been checked by thorough research that the applied for TLD string is not being used as integral part or extension in any major Internet Protocol or Operating System.
It is therefore our conclusion that there will be no operational or rendering problems concerning the applied for TLD.
- (OPTIONAL) Provide a representation of the label according to the International Phonetic Alphabet (http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/).
Mission/Purpose
18(a). Describe the mission/purpose of your proposed gTLD.
With this application the 1&1 Mail & Media GmbH wishes to apply for the .gmx TLD.
In the following 1&1 Mail & Media GmbH will outline the company background and structure as well as the purpose and mission of the application.
Company structure and background
1&1 Mail & Media GmbH (Mail&Media in the following)
With over 32 million customers Mail&Media covers nearly 50% of the German Webmail market. With its brands, Mail&Media is the largest free email provider in the German speaking countries of Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.
Mail&Media under its brands WEB.DE, GMX and MAIL.COM, provides email solutions for home users, as well as small and mid-size enterprises.
Mail&Media Brands
WEB.DE
WEB.DE was launched in 1995 as the first commercial German Internet catalogue. Today, with its Web services focusing on communication, information, entertainment and search and with 16.36 million users per month, WEB.DE has become one of the biggest Internet portals in Germany (AGOF internet facts 2011-10).
The WEB.DE portal offers over 40 different Internet information, entertainment and communication products including news, shopping, games as well as free and premium webmail. The portals provide a one-stop site offering all the relevant services our users need.
With over 15 million registered email customers, WEB.DE is the second largest email provider in Germany.
GMX
With over 15 years of expertise in Internet communication, the email pioneer GMX (global message exchange) is one of the most successful communication services in the German-speaking Internet today.
GMX offers high-performance, innovative mail and messaging solutions for the digital communication for each private and semi-professional customers. Embedded in the country-specific portals GMX Germany, GMX Austria and GMX Switzerland with their country-specific content and services, GMX is the digital home base for 15.3 million Internet users in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
MAIL.COM
The acquisition of MAIL.COM in 2010 marks the starting point in Mail&Media’s international success story. Within one and a half years, MAIL.COM has attracted over 2 million customers predominantly in the U.S., United Kingdom and France. With county-specific products in 15 languages, MAIL.COM aims to participate in the growth of emerging markets such as India and Brazil.
Again email is the core focus of MAIL.COM but additionally the portal provides an up-to-date international news and information service supported by global news agencies.
These three brands, WEB.DE, GMX and MAIL.COM, boast over 30 million active users worldwide of their freemail and premium mail services. The three portals, for their part, receive an additional 20 million unique visits per month.
Mail&Media is a 100% subsidiary of 1&1 Internet AG
About 1&1 Internet AG
1&1 is an internationally successful Germany based company with over 15 years of experience of providing a wide range of Internet solutions domestically and since 2003 internationally.
With over 7 million DSL⁄Internet telephony and hosting customers, more than 11 million ccTLD and gTLDs registration under management and in excess of 30 million Webmail account holders 1&1 is one of the leading Internet service companies worldwide.
The 1&1 brand provides products and services to our customers in two core areas.
The Access division concentrates on providing customers with solutions for high speed internet and telephone network access whether at home, in the office or when mobile. This can be either through DSL internet access, or through 1&1’s mobile telephone and data network. As an access provider 1&1 is the second largest provider in Germany.
The second core area is 1&1’s Hosting Division (Applications). This division provides the products, services and applications for our customers to actively create and optimize their own internet presence. The division primarily supplies webhosting packages, server rental, email and E-Business solutions and domain name purchase and management. The Hosting Division is internationally active with dedicated subsidiaries in the U.S.A, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Poland, Canada and Austria and is a leading hosting provider on the international stage.
1&1 Internet AG holds 100% of the 1&1 Mail & Media GmbH and is a 100% subsidiary of United Internet AG.
United Internet AG
With over 10 million fee-based customer contracts and over 32 million ad-financed free accounts, United Internet AG is a leading European internet specialist.
The heart of United Internet is our high-performance “Internet Factory” with over 5,200 employees, of which over 1,100 are engaged in product management, development and data centers. In addition to the high sales strength of its established brands (GMX, WEB.DE, 1&1, United-Domains, Fasthosts, InterNetX, Sedo and Affilinet) and distribution channels (some of which exclusive), United Internet stands for outstanding operational excellence with around 39 million customer accounts at 5 data centers with around 70,000 servers.
With global sales of 2.09€ billion and an EBT of 250.6€ million 2011 was a financially successful year for United Internet AG.
United Internet AG is listed on the German Techdax Stock Exchange trading under TECDAX WKN 508903.
United Internet AG holds 100% of 1&1 Internet AG which holds 100% of the 1&1 Mail & Media GmbH.
Reporting under the IFRS, all of United Internet AG’s 100% controlled companies, including 1&1 Mail & Media, are accounted within United Internet’s overall Annual Financial Statement and not individually.
Mission and Purpose
Due to the fact that GMX offers its services since 1997, it is difficult for new customers to find available email addresses they like, such as their name or reasonable combinations of names and other personal data.
With over 15,000 registrations per day the demand substantially exceeds the potential of the existing domains like gmx.de⁄gmx.net.
Importance of Email
Using an email address is one of the most important use-cases for internet-users. Emails addresses are necessary for:
-Personal communication
-Official communication
-Business communication
-As login credential for internet services (e.g. Facebook)
-Payment and Shopping Services (e.g. Paypal, Amazon)
Especially for communication purposes, the quality of an email address is part of the user’s reputation. If your name is John Smith, for example, it is almost impossible to get an email address like
With the new TDL .gmx, GMX can expand the available namespace for email addresses dramatically. Our mission is to offer prestigious and easy-to-remember email addresses for every one of our 15,000 new customers per day.
18(b). How do you expect that your proposed gTLD will benefit registrants, Internet users, and others?
Mail&Media has no intention to offer domains to its customers. Therefor all registered domains within the .gmx TLD are registered for Mail&Media.
Mail&Media’s primary goal is to expand the email namespace that can be offered to their customers. Therefore Mail&Media plans to define a set of a few hundred second level domain registrations below .gmx, under which Mail&Media will offer new email addresses to their customers.
Due to the fact that the primary business model of Mail&Media is a so called ‘freemium’ model (offer free accounts and upsell customers to premium products), we have no intention to charge customers for the new email addresses they register under the domains of the new TLD .gmx.
Mail&Media expects that the new email domains with the GMX TLD will attract many new customers for the following reasons:
Mail&Media can offer email addresses with the most popular names like “@smith.gmx”
Mail&Media is associated with technical experience, security and its core competence: privacy in accord with the very strict German data protection laws. With the new TLD .gmx we can transfer these values to a wide range of email domains for our customers.
Today, a lot of Mail&Media’s customers – especially within the premium email product – are professionals or semi-professionals. They use GMX because of its reliability and privacy. With the new TLD .gmx, Mail&Media can offer these customers the possibility to differentiate their email address from the free-user base email namespace @gmx.net.
Mail&Media can optimize its sales approach with marketing and landing pages on topic-specific domains (e.g. www.business.gmx)
Business concept and products
Wide-range namespace for new email registrations
On the basis of new second level domain registrations under the TLD .gmx Mail&Media can offer millions of new, attractive email addresses.
Additional email addresses for existing customers
Existing customers can add alias addresses to their mailboxes. Therefore no customer has to migrate his⁄her mailbox in order to obtain a new, more appropriate email address.
Fun emails
Personal email addresses like “
Special event email addresses
“one-time” email address for special events such as party invitations, birth, etc.
Local business email address
Mail&Media emits email addresses for local businesses like “bakery-munich.gmx” or “financialservice-frankfurt.gmx”
Benefits for Mail&Media
-Increase of new email registrations
-Reduced churn in active user base
-Reduced churn in premium customer base
-Increase of upselling to premium customers due to premium domains
Registration Policies
For all second level registrations under .gmx Mail&Media will always be the owner.
Registrations in the second level under .gmx must have between 1 and 63 characters, must be ASCII and can contain letter, digits and hypens but no hypens on the third and forth position.
Contact information will be collected in compliance with Specification 4 of the New GTLD Agreement Specifications.
The registrant will therefore provide Registrant Contact details including;
NameOrganization Name; Address; and Phone, Fax and email contact details.
The registrant shall also provide an Administration Contact and Technical Contact.
These two contact requirements also collect the applicable information regarding Name, Organization Name; Address; and Phone, Fax and email contact details.
As required in Specification 5 of the New GTLD Agreement Specifications, Mail&Media will reserve certain names at the second level within the .gmx TLD. The domains reserved will include special second level domains such as: example.gmx; all two-character labels; tagged domain names; country and territory names in consultation with the ISO 3166-1 List und UN Produced lists; as well as NIC, WWW, IRIS and WHOIS.
Registrations terms can be between 1 year and a maximum of 10 years.
Renewal terms can be between 1 year and a maximum of 10 years.
Mail&Media will comply with standard ICANN whois policies and local legislation.
18(c). What operating rules will you adopt to eliminate or minimize social costs?
All domain names registered under the .gmx TLD will be under the sole ownership of Mail&Media and utilized for Mail&Media’s email business. Therefore there is no need for:
-any processes dealing with competing registrations.
-pricing discounts or other pricing schemes as no domains are sold.
-price increases to be considered.
In the start-up phase Trademark owners’ rights will be considered through Mail&Media’s sunrise policy utilizing the Trademark Clearing House and the Trademark claims services.
Future second level domain registrations and the creation of email addresses will be subject to, as required by ICANN, the Trademark Claims Service, as well as Mail&Media’s already existing Trademark protection processes.