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.obi New gTLD Application

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New gTLD Application Submitted to ICANN by: OBI Group Holding SE & Co. KGaA

String: obi

Originally Posted: 13 June 2012

Application ID: 1-1739-45800

 

Applicant Information

 

  1. Full legal name

OBI Group Holding SE & Co. KGaA

 

  1. Address of the principal place of business

Albert-Einstein-Strasse 7-9

42949 Wermelskirchen

DE

 

  1. Phone number

+4921967601

 

  1. Fax number

+492196761019

 

  1. If applicable, website or URL

http:⁄⁄www.obi.de

 

Primary Contact

 

6(a). Name

Mr. Hermann-Josef Kessel

 

6(b). Title

Managing Director Corporate Legal

 

6(c). Address

 

6(d). Phone Number

+492196761449

 

6(e). Fax Number

+492196761590

 

6(f). Email Address

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Secondary Contact

 

7(a). Name

Mr. Oliver Tackmann

 

7(b). Title

Managing Director IT

 

7(c). Address

 

7(d). Phone Number

+492196761992

 

7(e). Fax Number

+492196761666

 

7(f). Email Address

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Proof of Legal Establishment

 

8(a). Legal form of the Applicant

corporation

 

8(b). State the specific national or other jursidiction that defines the type of entity identified in 8(a).

Germany

 

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.

 

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

Dieter Messner Managing Director International

Oliver Geiling CFO

Paolo Alemagna Managing Director Corporate Category Management, PEM, Logistics

Sergio Giroldi CEO

 

11(b). Name(s) and position(s) of all officers and partners

Hermann-Josef Kessel Managing Director Corporate Legal

Oliver Tackmann Managing Director IT

 

11(c). Name(s) and position(s) of all shareholders holding at least 15% of shares

 

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

 

  1. Provide the applied-for gTLD string. If an IDN, provide the U-label.

obi

 

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.

 

  1. 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.

Since the .obi gTLD is an ASCII-only string, there are no known operational or rendering problems. The situation is comparable to other strings such as .com, .net or .de, where also no issues could be identified.

 

  1. (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.

OBI is one of the leading brands in the worldwide DIY („Do it yourself“) market. Measured by the annual turnover, OBI is the seventh most profitable DIY-company in the world. In Europe, OBI has the third largest turnover and in Germany OBI is the undisputed No. 1.

The OBI Group has 143 affiliated companies. Today, OBI operates 579 stores throughout Europe with more than 40.500 employees. Besides the German home market with actually 343 stores, OBI is also present in Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Ukraine and intends to expand to more countries.

The mission of the proposed „.obi“ gTLD is to serve as an exclusive namespace for the OBI brand. Only OBI shall be eligible to register Second Level Domains in the „.obi“ namespace. A right to use registered domain names will be granted to group companies, franchise partners and possibly a limited number of contractors subject to policies and conditions set up by OBI.

 

The proposed gTLD „.obi“ shall serve multiple purposes:

 

  1. The proposed „.obi“ gTLD will make it easier for users to find information about OBI markets.
  2. The proposed „.obi“ gTLD will make it easier for users to find information about products or product categories.
  3. The proposed „.obi“ gTLD will make it easier for users to find corporate information.
  4. The proposed „.obi“ gTLD will help forge consumer trust in e-commerce.
  5. The proposed „.obi“ gTLD will open opportunities for OBI to establish new innovative business models.
  6. The proposed „.obi“ gTLD will help avoid fragmentation of the company-wide use of domain names at the global level.
  7. The proposed „.obi“ gTLD will help the company to improve its international unique and unified appearance.
  8. The proposed „.obi“ gTLD will facilitate OBI’s digital brand management at the international level.
  9. The „.obi“ namespace will provide for a safer and more secure surfing experience.
  10. The proposed „.obi“ gTLD shall reduce the risk of users being deceived by offers or information allegedly originating from OBI and therefore mitigate the risk of users becoming victims of abusive behaviour and malicious conducts.

 

ad 1-3

Not only will OBI promote the new TLD as such, but also the structure and syntax of the namespace and how it is used. This will help users to intuitively find information and products they are looking for.

According to current plans, there will be different categories of domain names that will consistently be used. The following non-exhaustive list of such categories, which may be subject to change, gives examples of use cases of the „.obi“ domain names.

 

- country.obi, such as germany.obi, austria.obi or hungary.obi and city.obi, such as munich.obi, vienna.obi (subject to the respective procedures for geographic names)

- market.obi, such as koeln-marsdorf.obi

- productcategory.obi, such as tools.obi, wallpaper.obi

- product.obi, such as screwdriver.obi, socket.obi or mowing-machine.obi

- name-of-manufacturer-or-brand.obi, such as lux-tools.obi or montana.obi

- campaign-or-special-offer.obi, such as giftcard.obi, top-customer-card.obi or spring-competition.obi

- special service performance, such as services.obi or rental-equipment.obi

- corporate.obi, such as jobs.obi or marketing.obi

- group consolidated legal entities and franchisees, such as obigroupholding.obi

 

Registrations and use of domain names, in particular with geographic names, are subject to the respective policies applicable for the „.obi“ gTLD.

Such approach of structuring information provided by OBI may also support accessing and finding information by means of search engines.

 

ad 4:

OBI will implement a consistent program to establish and forge consumer trust for the whole namespace, e.g. by means of certificates, payment methods or quality seals.

 

ad 5:

OBI believes that new and innovative business models using the DNS can and will be rolled out in the near and mid-term future. OBI therefore wishes to be prepared in terms of the technical infrastructure should OBI choose to introduce such services.

 

ad 7:

According to OBI’s plans, the company group will expand to new markets and intensify its presence in existing markets. As a consequence, there is no certainty whatsoever, that domain names are available for registration to ensure a unified and consistent domain use in the respective gTLD and ccTLD namespaces. The exclusive „.obi“ TLD enables OBI to establish and maintain a domain name portfolio that is consistent, under OBI’s sole control and deployable at the global level.

 

ad 9:

OBI will use a policy framework providing including content restrictions to make the „.obi“ zone a familiy-friendly service. Additionally, there are contractual requirements and sanctions for the promotion of domain names and content or services offered thereunder. OBI deploys the Registry Service Provider’s malware scan for the whole namespace as an additional means to mitigate the risk of e.g. servers being intruded and misused for the dissemination of malicious code.

 

ad 10:

OBI will communicate to its target group that information from the company can actually be found in the OBI namespace. By doing so, the user is educated that other domain names may not be operated by OBI or its contractors.

 

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

ad i – iii:

In order to avoid duplication, we refer to the information provided in response to question 18. a).

Since only OBI will be eligible to register domain names under the „.obi“ TLD, the benefits are restricted to this entity and potentially to those who are granted the right to use registered domain names.

By limiting the number of eligible users of the namespace, OBI will ensure that only information or services originating from OBI, a group company or business partner relevant to OBI’s business will be made available under the proposed gTLD. By doing so, users will be given the benefit of additional trust in the information provided. Content restrictions and acceptable use policies will give the namespace a good reputation as the user can be sure that only information he or she expects from a DIY site will be available in the namespace. This is a speciality for the namespace. In addition to the TLD as a recognition feature for OBI, OBI will also make the use of OBI styleguides mandatory for the use of the namespace. This will help increase the reputation of the namespace as a source of original information. Since there will only be one registrant, namely OBI itself, Whois will be 100% accurate.

User will benefit from directory services both that will be established under the proposed TLD in terms of categories, topics, products, locations and language.

OBI expects that more brands will make use comparable services. Further, OBI expects that Internet users will learn that new dotBrand namespaces can be used intuitively. Such services could not be established without using third level domain names prior to the establishment of new gTLDs.

 

  1. In order to support the goals mentioned above, OBI will issue the „.OBI Eligibility Policy“ which clearly states that the only eligible registrant for domain names under the .obi gTLD is Obi Group Holding GmbH.

Also, in the „.obi Domain Name Policy“ a demarcation of acceptable use versus abuse will be depicted. Abuse is defined as „registration abuse“ and „usage abuse“ as follows:

   “Registration abuse” is:

* The use of faulty⁄falsified⁄incomplete⁄stolen person-related or company-related data on registration (danger to WHOIS accuracy, see below);

* Cybersquatting⁄typosquatting;

* Registration of illegal domain names (see question 29).

      “Usage abuse” is:

* Violation of applicable laws or regulation; in particular the provisions of the German Criminal Code, the German Youth Protection Act and the German Interstate Treaty on the Protection of Minors in the Media (JMStV). Only such contents are permissible which may be made available to underaged persons without any restrictions;

* Use of a domain to publish content which incites to hatred against parts of the population or against a national, racial, religious or ethnic group, content which glorifies violence, content which violates the human dignity, content which denies or plays down acts committed under the National Socialist regime;

* Distribution of child abusive material;

* Use of a domain name for the dissemination of spam, i.e. unsolicited bulk electronic communication (e-mail, instant messaging, on websites, in forums or mobile messaging) or advertising a domain name by means of spam.

* Use of a domain name for Distributed Denial-of-service attacks (“DDoS attacks”);

* Use of domain names in phishing activities, tricking Internet users into divulging personal data such as names, addresses, usernames, passwords, or financial data;

* Use of domain names in  pharming , such as DNS hijacking and DNS cache poisoning;

* Use of domain names for the intentional distribution of malicious code such as spyware, botware, keylogger bots, viruses, worms or trojans;

* Use of domain names to command and control botnets , i.e. a network of compromised computers or “zombies,”

* Use of domain names in activities intended to gain illegal access to other computers or networks (“hacking”), as well as any activity to prepare for  such a system penetration; or

* Use of a domain name fast flux hosting, disguising the location of internet addresses or Internet services.

 

With OBI’s “.obi Abuse Reporting and Takedown Policy“ escalation procedures, response times and sanctions are clearly described to ensure that unlikely abuse cases are swiftly and efficiently dealt with and objectionable content is removed expediently, domain registrations are suspended or deleted or other threats and abuse types are adequately countered. A detailed description of the policy can be found in the answer to question 28.

Further, OBI will have contractual agreements with all parties, may they be group companies or franchisees e.g. that are allowed to use domain names to bindingly agree upon acceptable use, abuse handling and the respective sanctions.

 

  1. Since the proposed TLD will be used for business purposes of OBI and its contractors exclusively, there will be no measures to protect the privacy or confidential information of registrants and users since there is no need for doing so. Should personal information of users be collected or processed in connection with the use of the namespace, such information must be treated in accordance with applicable data protection laws. As mentioned above, OBI will apply content restrictions as well as an Acceptable Use Policy for the proposed gTLD. Abiding by applicable data protection laws is one aspect of this. Breaches would be a violation of these rules and thereby a violation of the contract, that can lead to the termination of the registration agreement or the use of the domain name used for by the infringing party.

OBI plans to use domain names under the proposed gTLD in its communication to users and contractors and in marketing campaigns both on- and offline. By doing so, the proposed TLD and its benefits will be brought to the attention of the target audiences.

Today OBI communicates it´s current B2C website www.obi.de as cross link in any kind of communication. The media mix consists of broad media (TV and Billboard), leaflet as main activation tool, direct mailing, radio, online and other advertisement media. The proposed gTLD will be also communicated within this mix.

 

18(c). What operating rules will you adopt to eliminate or minimize social costs?

Only Obi Group Holding GmbH will be an eligible registrant for .obi domain names. This will be laid down in the OBI Eligibility Policy. In addition to that, OBI will implement all Rights Protection Mechanisms as required by ICANN. This commitment applies both for currently known RPMs as well as those yet to be defined or imposed at a later stage by means of consensus policies.

As a consequence, there is no risk of cybersquatting or speculative registrations that could possibly cause costs, e.g. for defensive registrations.

In addition to that, OBI uses content restrictions to ensure that all contents and services offered under ʺ.obiʺ domain names are family-friendly.

As contractors such as franchisees might be granted the right to use domain names (registered by Obi Group Holding GmbH), contractual agreements with these parties including sanctions and including the policies for the .obi gTLD will ensure that the name space will be used in a compliant manner.

A clear demarcation of acceptable use versus abuse is detailed in the .OBI Domain Name Policy, which will be enforced by means of robust escalation procedures including response times to provide for swift action, if needed.

 

  1. i) The only eligible registrant will be OBI, which is why multiple applications for a particular domain name will not occur. As a consequence, there will be no mechanisms to resolve such conflicts.

However, OBI wishes to grant the right of use regarding specific domain names to contractors, e.g. franchise partners that run OBI markets. Since there are multiple markets in certain cities, it is not possible to allocate a second level domain name in the format of city.obi to each market. It is therefore planned to resolve such conflicts by implementing a landing page for such cities and link the markets under their name or the name of the quarter where they are located or another unique identifier (e.g. koeln-marsdorf.obi).

 

  1. ii) Since no registration fees will be charged by the registry, there are no such cost benefits.

 

iii) Registrations will be possible for the duration of one to ten years. Since no registration fees will be charged, no commitments in terms of price increases will be made.