.LIAISON New gTLD Application
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New gTLD Application Submitted to ICANN by: Liaison Technologies, Incorporated
String: LIAISON
Originally Posted: 13 June 2012
Application ID: 1-1904-8749
Applicant Information
- Full legal name
Liaison Technologies, Incorporated
- Address of the principal place of business
3157 Royal Drive
Suite 200
Alpharetta Georgia 30022
US
- Phone number
+1 866 336 7378
- Fax number
+1 770 642 5050
- If applicable, website or URL
http:⁄⁄www.liaison.com
Primary Contact
6(a). Name
Mr. Joshua Bourne
6(b). Title
Managing Partner
6(c). Address
6(d). Phone Number
+1 202 223 9252
6(e). Fax Number
6(f). Email Address
Secondary Contact
7(a). Name
Mr. Bruce Chen
7(b). Title
Chief Technology Officer, Executive Vice President of Healthcare Informatics
7(c). Address
7(d). Phone Number
+1 770 442 4856
7(e). Fax Number
7(f). Email Address
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).
Delaware
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
Betsy Seaton Director
- Tycho Howle Director
Clark Golestani Director
Don House Co-Chairman
John Balboni Director
John Steven Simon, Jr. Co-Chairman
Lars Bjorn Thorensen Director
Paul L. H. Olson Director
Robert A. Renner Director
Staffan Morndal Director
11(b). Name(s) and position(s) of all officers and partners
Bruce Chen Chief Technology Officer
Christopher Wassenaar Executive Vice President & General Counsel
James Morgan Chief Financial Officer
Juhani Sormanen Executive Vice President, Europe
Larry D. Mieldezis Chief Operating Officer
Robert A. Renner President and Chief Executive Officer
11(c). Name(s) and position(s) of all shareholders holding at least 15% of shares
Liaison Technologies, Incorporated 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.
LIAISON
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.
Liaison Technologies, Inc. (“Liaison”) foresees no known rendering issues in connection with the proposed .LIAISON gTLD for which it is applying. This answer is based upon consultation with Liaison’s selected back-end provider, VeriSign, Inc., which has successfully launched a number of new gTLDs over the last decade. In reaching this determination, the following data points were analyzed:
-ICANN’s Security Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) entitled Alternative TLD Name Systems and Roots: Conflict, Control and Consequences (SAC009);
-IAB - RFC3696 “Application Techniques for Checking and Transformation of Names”
-Known software issues which Verisign has encountered during the last decade launching new gTLDs;
-Character type and length;
-ICANN supplemental notes to Question 16; and
-ICANN’s presentation during its Costa Rica regional meeting on TLD Universal Acceptance.
- (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.
Liaison Technologies, Inc. (ʺLiaisonʺ) is a global integration and data management company that provides complex business solutions and services to over 8,000 organizations in over 35 countries.
Liaison is a global leader in business-to-business integration services that helps companies maximize cost efficiencies and improve supply chain operations. Liaisonʹs services portfolio includes master data management (“MDM”), business-to-business and enterprise application integration project outsourcing, managed services, and a robust service oriented architecture-based network platform. Headquartered in Alpharetta, GA, USA, Liaison also has offices in the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
The potential use of the .LIAISON gTLD will primarily be driven by Liaison’s future business strategies as identified in its press release page: https:⁄⁄liaison.com⁄about-liaison⁄news.
The intended future mission and purpose of the .LIAISON gTLD is to serve as a trusted, hierarchical, and intuitive namespace for Liaison and end-users, and potentially Liaison’s licensees and other strategic parties.
Recognizing the potential dynamic evolution of the .LIAISON gTLD as a trusted brand namespace, Liaison has decided to utilize itself as the entity to file this application and bring the .LIAISON gTLD to market. Although Liaison is committed to moving forward with the .LIAISON gTLD application, it has not at the time of filing this application been able to fully vet and analyze all potential use case options.
Although ICANN has not specifically recognized a .BRAND gTLD specification in the current gTLD application round, it is widely anticipated in the brand owner community that this will become a specialty subset of gTLDs.
.LIAISON is intended to be one of those .BRAND gTLDs, with the goal of protecting Liaison’s online presence and identity, expanding its marketing and promotion efforts, providing a secure channel for online products and services, and offering a platform through which to consolidate many of the intellectual property activities of Liaison.
Liaison intends to initially limit registration and use of domain names within the .LIAISON gTLD to Liaison and potentially licensees and strategic parties. This initial limited use will allow Liaison to establish the .LIAISON operations and achieve full sustainability. This limited distribution, coupled with the other requirements set forth in Specification 9 of the template Registry Agreement, is intended to exempt Liaison from its annual Code of Conduct Compliance requirements.
After Stage 3 (see below), Liaison will evaluate whether opportunities exist to carry out the business strategy for the .LIAISON gTLD through expansion that continues the sustainable operations of the registry through registrations that may or may not be fee-based to parties other than Liaison and potentially its licensees and strategic parties.
Liaison currently plans a four-stage rollout for the .LIAISON gTLD:
- Stage 1
The initial stage of implementation of the gTLD will involve Liaison registering a limited number of .LIAISON second-level domain names.
This initial use will provide Liaison’s IT and security personnel the time to run a number of tests to ensure seamless and secure access using the .LIAISON gTLD domain names, interoperability with various software and Web-based applications, and unbroken and secure use of all names. This initial allocation will also allow the appropriate Liaison staff to coordinate with the internal and external staff responsible for the delegation and setup phases of the .LIAISON gTLD to ensure a proper transition from delegation to full operation.
- Stage 2
Once all testing has been successfully completed, Liaison will begin allocating domain names in .LIAISON for more widespread internal corporate use.
It is in Stage 2 that Liaison will evaluate expanding the operations of the .LIAISON gTLD potentially to permit registration by other registrants such as licensees and strategic parties. Should an assessment of its expansion strategy lead to a decision to extend registration rights to other parties, this expansion is currently planned to take place during Stage Three. However, any expansion would be conditioned upon a review of Specification 9 (Registry Code of Conduct) set forth in the template Registry Agreement to ensure compliance with Liaison’s business model.
- Stage 3
It is in this stage that Liaison may potentially implement its decision to potentially extend registration rights to licensees and strategic parties, depending upon compliance with Specification 9 as noted above. The dates of such expansion are subject to change depending upon business, strategic, and industry factors at the time.
After consideration of the following factors: analysis of Liaison’s existing domain name portfolio; internal analysis of marketing initiatives; and the fact that Liaison will have full control over the number of registrations in the .LIAISON gTLD namespace, Liaison is confident that the number of domain name registrations will be less than 10,000 in the first five years of operation.
- Stage 4
Based on its experience in the first four stages, and based on its experience with any expansion implemented in Stage Three, Liaison will assess whether its business plan and expansion strategy should be augmented by extending registration rights to a broader class of entities. It is anticipated by Liaison that changes to the domain name industry, and particularly the impact of .BRAND gTLDs, will take a number of years to be realized and assessed. Any decision to expand the gTLD beyond corporate, licensees and strategic parties’ use will take into account this experience as well as the technical analysis of potential expansion.
The potential use of the .LIAISON gTLD will also be driven by Liaisons’ future business strategies.
Using current projections based on Liaisons’ existing businesses, future business plans, current domain name portfolio, and other strategic factors, Liaison estimates second-level domain name registrations to be in line with the projections set forth in the financial template provided in the answer to Question 46 of this application.
18(b). How do you expect that your proposed gTLD will benefit registrants, Internet users, and others?
Liaison believes that the proposed .LIAISON gTLD has the potential to offer a variety of benefits to global Internet end-users, such as establishing a trusted source of information and an online marketplace for the millions of end-users searching for related information through Liaison’s online resources.
In addition, Liaison anticipates that .LIAISON could provide Liaison and potentially its licensees and strategic parties with short and memorable Internet addresses, as well as provide increased navigation to products, services, advertising campaigns, public interest content, and public awareness initiatives.
A .LIAISON gTLD could also minimize the cost and need for defensive registrations because domain names within the .LIAISON gTLD will initially only be allocated by Liaison to its internal departments and potentially to its licensees and strategic parties.
Also, end-users may benefit from lower incidents of phishing and malware often associated with mistypes of domain names in the .COM space that are owned by cybersquatters since they will be navigating to domain names in the .LIAISON gTLD.
18.2.1 What is the goal of your proposed gTLD in terms of areas of specialty, service levels, or reputation?
The primary mission and purpose of the .LIAISON gTLD is to provide a trusted, hierarchical, and intuitive online marketplace for Liaison content and other products and services. Given that end-users are increasingly demanding access to Liaison information through a variety of channels, which include domain names, Liaison believes that the .LIAISON gTLD has the potential to provide an innovative, virtual avenue to Liaisonʹs content that will deepen and broaden its relationship with these end-users.
As Liaison continues to expand its product offerings and presence in global markets, the company has considered using .LIAISON to pursue and develop opportunities to market and distribute its online content and products to end-users on various platforms, including the Internet and mobile devices, among others. Providing end-users with a trusted experience is paramount to Liaison, and the .LIAISON gTLD will be used to further that goal.
While companies such as Liaison fight never-ending battles to protect their valuable intellectual property from fraud and piracy on the Internet, the .LIAISON gTLD would offer end-users a safe and intuitive means of accessing authorized content from Liaison and potentially Liaison’s licensees and other strategic parties.
18.2.2 What do you anticipate your proposed gTLD will add to the current space, in terms of competition, differentiation, or innovation?
As a .BRAND gTLD, the primary driving factors of the .LIAISON gTLD are differentiation and innovation. The success of the gTLD will not be measured by the number of domain names registered. Instead, it will be measured by the levels of consumer recognition and trust that are placed in the .LIAISON gTLD. Using this benchmark, Liaison will strive to build consumer recognition and trust that rise to the levels of those found in the .EDU and .GOV gTLDs. The .LIAISON gTLD has the potential to aid this online strategy, if the potential consumer benefits that ICANN experts have anticipated become a reality.
18.2.3 What goals does your proposed gTLD have in terms of user experience?
Liaison believes that the .LIAISON gTLD will provide a single, trusted ecosystem experience for the millions of global end-users seeking information about Liaison and its products and services. In addition to providing end-users with short, memorable, and intuitive domain names, Liaison will have best-in-class safeguards to minimize any potential infringing or pirated content within the .LIAISON gTLD.
Liaison will continue to stay abreast of changes in the new gTLD space following commencement of operations and will adjust its strategy as needed to ensure it is providing the most valuable and relevant experience for end-users.
18.2.4 Provide a complete description of the applicant’s intended registration policies in support of the goals listed above.
The .LIAISON gTLD is currently intended to be exclusively used by Liaison and potentially Liaison’s licensees and strategic parties.
Because of this condition precedent, any registration and use requirements are more appropriately vested in corporate⁄affiliate agreements and not in a domain name registration agreement. Liaison reserves the right to consider allowing third-party registrants outside of its current affiliates or subsidiaries to own .LIAISON domains for a fee at a future date. This decision would only be made following an extensive, internal evaluation of Liaison’s on-going branding and online goals, and discussions with Liaison’s registry services provider.
Liaison will incorporate all required ICANN consensus policies and other legal⁄policy requirements imposed on new gTLD applicants into the appropriate agreements.
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.
Liaison recognizes first hand that this is an evolving area of law in which there is no uniform international standard. As a company with global operations, Liaison respects the privacy of its end-users. The company employs a variety of physical, electronic, contractual, and managerial safeguards to protect personal and confidential information on its websites. Liaison will take similar precautions to protect registrant and user data associated with the .LIAISON gTLD.
Furthermore, given that every domain name will be registered to Liaison or potentially a subsidiary, affiliate, licensee, or strategic party, Liaison has a vested interest in ensuring that accurate and current registrant information is readily available in connection with each .LIAISON domain name.
Liaison will ensure that the operation of the .LIAISON gTLD will be consistent with Liaison’s Privacy Policy⁄Terms of Use, available on its website at https:⁄⁄liaison.com⁄about-liaison⁄privacy.
In addition, Liaison intends to incorporate contractual language in its Registry-Registrar Agreement (RRA) modeled after language that has been included in the template Registry Agreement and that 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.
Liaison plans to ultimately utilize .LIAISON domain names for the creation of new, unique content reflecting Liaison’s evolving business strategies. Liaison may also use the domains as redirects to existing .COM and other domains that Liaison currently operates and potentially, those of its licensees and strategic parties. Liaison plans to carefully review the response from search engines to .BRAND gTLDs, and the perception of end-users. As the marketplace evolves, Liaison will invest in outreach and communication as needed to ensure that its end-users continue to interact with Liaison content, services, and products in a simple, efficient, and productive manner.
18(c). What operating rules will you adopt to eliminate or minimize social costs?
18.3.1 What operating rules will you adopt to eliminate or minimize social costs (e.g., time or financial resource costs, as well as various types of consumer vulnerabilities)?
Liaison has proposed operating rules to limit domain registrations to Liaison, its subsidiaries and affiliates, and potentially its licensees and strategic parties and will provide a trusted online environment for end-users.
Therefore, one way in which social costs will be eliminated is that there will be no defensive need for other trademark and brand owners to register second-level domains in the .LIAISON gTLD. In addition, the .LIAISON gTLD will provide end-users with a trusted source for Liaison information, goods, and services.
18.3.2 What other steps will you take to minimize negative consequences⁄costs imposed upon consumers?
Liaison believes that the proposed operation of the .LIAISON gTLD as set forth in this application has no known negative consequences or cost implications to end-users. On the contrary, the proposed operation of this registry will likely lead to direct and quantifiable benefits to end-users.
18.3.3 How will multiple applications for a particular domain name be resolved, for example, by auction or on a first-come⁄first-serve basis?
Liaison does not envision multiple applicants for the same domain name, as domain names will only be allocated to Liaison, and potentially to Liaison’s licensees and strategic parties.
18.3.4 Explain any cost benefits for registrants you intend to implement (e.g., advantageous pricing, introductory discounts, bulk registration discounts).
Liaison does not envision any pricing, introductory discounts, or bulk registration discounts at this time because these marketing⁄commercial initiatives are inconsistent with the mission and purpose of the .LIAISON gTLD as a trusted online source identifier for Liaison, subsidiaries and affiliates, and potentially its licensees and strategic parties.
Moreover, it is the current intention of Liaison to limit the distribution of second-level domain names in the first three years and the company is therefore forecasting conservative second-level domain name registration volumes during this period.
18.3.5 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.
Liaison is committed to providing the domain name registration periods set forth in the Registry Agreement. Therefore, providing contractual commitments in a domain name registrant agreement regarding the magnitude of price escalations does not seem relevant or appropriate. Liaison acknowledges that the current template Registry Agreement requires that the Registry Operator “shall offer registrars the option to obtain registration periods for one to ten years at the discretion of the registrar.”
However, Liaison and other initial registrants will only register domain names on an annual basis.