.cooking

Status:	Delegated
Type:	Generic
Category:	Food & Drink
More information:

.cooking is a proposed TLD in ICANN's New gTLD Program. Top Level Domain Holdings Ltd. is the only applicant for .cooking, which is one of 68 applications that the company has filed on its own behalf. The proposed application succeeded and was delegated to the Root Zone on 31 March 2014.

Intended Use

.Cooking is a new generic top level domain targeted to chefs, cooks, restaurants, culinary organizations, food-focused ecommerce platforms, kitchen appliance brands, and other food-related industries.

Delegation and Availability

.cooking was delegated to the Root Zone of the DNS on 31 March, 2014, completing the successful application for the string.

Application Details

The following is excerpted from the applicant's response to question #18:

"The goal of the .COOKING gTLD is to give cooks of all experience levels the ability to share ideas, methods, tips, and best-practices and to provide a meaningful domain for those involved in the commercial aspects of cooking.

As one of the most popular recreational activities in the United States, cooking has a diverse following. There are cooking shows to teach technique and recipes and even cook-offs that pit master chefs against each other and against guests. Cooking benefits both from being a utilitarian activity and an art form; a growing community exists based on the common interest it generates and is sustained by the sharing of methods, tips, knowledge, and expertise built on years of experience. The .COOKING top-level domain will offer those looking for information about cooking an easily-identifiable means of recognizing sites that want to affiliate themselves with the cooking world.

The .COOKING top-level domain will offer professional chefs and amateur cooks the opportunity to better connect with one another and share knowledge about cooking. For providers of cooking goods and services, .COOKING will provide a readily identifiable banner to help attract customers. .. We specifically examined more restrictive registration policies, such as limiting registration to members of organizations with a specific tie to cooking. We rejected such limitations because they would interfere with .COOKING’s primary mission, purpose and goals--which is to encourage as many registrants as possible to associate themselves with cooking for any legal purpose. Factors that we took into account when considering a more restrictive registration policy included:

• Our recognition that registrants of a .COOKING domain name will self-select because they have an interest in cooking, naturally reducing the number of potential registrants; and, because restrictive policies such as, for example, requiring membership in a specific organization or organizations, would exclude many legitimate registrants from obtaining a .COOKING domain name. For example, and by way of illustration, if membership an organization were required for registration, businesses and charitable organizations that would find a .COOKING top-level domain name an effective marketing tool would be excluded from registering a .COOKING domain name as they might not be eligible to be members in an organization that accepted only natural persons for membership.

With respect to protecting registrant privacy and confidential information, we will comply with all applicable ICANN rules, including Whois policies, and all applicable laws, rules and regulations of appropriate jurisdictions. Registrant privacy and use of confidential information are set forth in our Privacy & Whois Policy. Information concerning updates and changes to the Privacy & Whois Policy will be promptly and prominently displayed on the .COOKING web site."

Contract Signed

On November 21, 2013 TLDH received a Registry Agreement signed by ICANN for .cooking after passing the Initial Evaluation.