.Kids
Domain will
file its application on Monday with the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The
company is the only one of several would-be TLD
operators that has publicly announced its bid to
create the .com-like domain-name spaces of the
future.
Unlike
.com, .net and .org, new top-level domain registrars
such as .kids will have the authority to set
policies as to the registration and use of domain
names. Those policies must be approved by ICANN
after negotiations with the would-be registrar.
Monday
marks the deadline for applications to ICANN.
The nonprofit corporation has so far kept the number
and nature of TLD applications secret, but is
expected to release the final list sometime this
week.
"There's
no quota set," said Andrew McLaughlin, ICANN's
chief policy officer. "It really depends on the
quality of applications. We want a high level of
diversity."
McLaughlin
said that ICANN staffers will scrutinize the TLD
petitions for financial and technical competence
before making recommendations to the board of
directors at their next
meeting in mid-November.
After
applications are posted to the Web, McLaughlin said
there will be a comment period during which the
public will be invited discuss the proposals.
Applicants
like .Kids Domains will have their plans compared to
ICANN's criteria
for accessing TLD proposals. In particular,
candidates must specify how their proposed TLD will
deal with intellectual property issues like
cybersquatting.
Page
Howe, CEO of .Kids Domains, said his company has
thought long and hard about how to deal with the
issue of cyber-squatters and other trademark
concerns.
In
the case of unique or famous trademarked names --
such as Xerox or McDonald's -- Howe said that
trademark holders will get a chance to register
their names before everybody else.
"In
the case of non-trademarkable generic names, we will
not allow .com domains to transfer to .kids,"
he said.
He
used the porn site teenfun.com as an example of both
a generic term and precisely the kind of content
that will be disallowed on .kids if the TLD is
approved by ICANN.
The
company's application strikes another trademark
compromise by proposing a shared .kids domain name
in cases where competing companies have similar
marks, Howe said.
Traditional
trademark law allows different companies to use the
same trademark -- say AcmeTM
-- if their product lines do not overlap or they are
geographically disparate from each other, Howe said.
But with the one-to-one limitation of domain names
in .net, .com and .org, the practical effect has
been to limit the use of trademarks on the Net to
one company.
Not
so with .kids, Howe said.
"We
will offer these trademark holders the ability to
have a redirect page that lists different companies
with the same mark," he said.
In a
time when domain squatters are turning to pre-registration
schemes and trademark
law to achieve meta-registrations before new
TLDs are even approved, Howe said his company has
plans to limit the stockpiling of non-trademarked
domain names, a practice sometimes known as
cyber-wildcatting.
"We
are actually requiring our registrants to have a
website within four months of registration," he
said. "We believe that having a domain name
with no website is not positive for kids."
In
line with its stated mission of providing a
"green space" for children on the Net,
Howe said that advertising and content that features
porn, liquor, drugs and guns will be forbidden.
All
.kids domain-name registrants will have to agree to
comply with existing state and federal laws relating
to protecting children, as well as the policies set
by .kids TLD.
Domain-name
holders in the .kids TLD will be subject to yearly
audits to ensure that their content is safe for
minors and that the site operators are given notice
of any new changes in the law to which they must
abide, he said.
"We're
adding an additional contractual obligation that
says that if you don't follow our policies we can
shut you down," Howe said. "You're only
allowed to publish things that are legal and
appropriate for kids."
Howe
said that .Kids Domains will keep its policy arm
separate from its business side. The company will
appoint an independently funded committee to work
with child-protection groups and set policy for the
TLD.
.Kids
Domains will also keep its technical operations
separate from its customer service and business
operations. The company has hired Tucows
to handle the technical implementations of its
registry.
Ross
Rader, director of assigned names for Tucows, said
that his company hopes to make its Open
eXtensible Registry System a technology standard
for back-end registry operations.
"It's
an extensible registry system," Rader said.
"It provides all the back-end systems for TLDs
and country code TLDs."
In
addition to .Kids Domains, Tucows will also use
OpenXRS as part of a joint TLD proposal with Network
Solutions, Register.com
and 16 other registrars. He would not, however,
discuss the details of their joint application.
Rader
said OpenXRS promises to make it easy for companies
to run registries without the technical headaches
associated with the business. To date, five groups
have signed up with OpenXRS, he said. Tucows
maintains a test-bed version of a OpenXRS called mooNIC.
