.organic

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

.organic is a proposed TLD in ICANN's New gTLD Program. The applicant is Afilias.

European Commission Communiqué

The European Commission flagged the application for .organic outside of ICANN's defined remediation processes.

Just after ICANN's GAC issued its Early Warnings, which are advice given from one GAC member country to an applicant warning it of potential issues within its application, the European Commission issued a letter to all applicants within the new gTLD program. The letter highlights 58 applications that "could raise issues of compatibility with the existing legislation .. and/or with policy positions and objectives of the European Union." It notes a desire to open a dialogue with each offending applicant.

The Commission specifically notes that this objection is not a part of the GAC Early Warning process, and goes on to note that "the Commission does not consider itself legally bound to [ICANN] processes," given that there is not legal agreement between the two bodies.

Application Details

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

"The mission of the .ORGANIC is to be the Internets source for information on organic products, producers and sellers. The TLD will provide organic-oriented food producers and businesses a namespace to establish meaningful and relevant identities and to promote their companies, products and services, and to disseminate information relating to organic topics. The primary purpose is to create a trusted online locale among customers, businesses and organizations, and to create a central Internet space where users find information pertaining to organic topics.

We anticipate a variety of reasons that businesses and individuals would want to acquire domain under the .ORGANIC TLD.

Businesses may want to create a professional web presence including online stores or shopping experiences, or use blogs, wikis and file sharing sites to support their merchandising, retailing efforts and business goals, and to generally share information. Producers, from large cooperatives to small local growers with a single product, will have a relevant TLD to promote their farm. Farmers markets and other collectives and cooperatives will have a contextual meaningful strong to publicize their events and exchanges.

Individuals may use .ORGANIC domains to create websites to support or announce planned businesses and begin marketing efforts, research and tests, or to establish organic related sites to share information and connect with other individuals interested in organic topics.

Sales of organic products exceeded $26 billion in 2010 in the U.S. alone, with the industry growing at more than 7% a year (http:⁄⁄www.ota.com⁄organic⁄mt⁄business.html). This represents a huge industry of organic producers and related businesses, as well as the people interested in finding information about organic products and services. We anticipate capturing a small percentage of those businesses in the first three years who will quickly realize the intrinsic value of the .ORGANIC TLD and will wish to be early adopters of this opportunity.

Though the addressable market is in the millions, we foresee a slow adoption curve. Afilias anticipates that potential registrants will be slow to purchase the new TLD and invest in changing their web presence. Therefore, we forecast having approximately 8,000 Domains Under Management (DUMs) by the third year of operation. Our financial responses in questions 45 though 50 go into detail on our funding, cost and revenue projections.

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.ORGANIC will be an open TLD, generally available to all registrants (except in the Sunrise period). The domains can be used for any purpose, including for business use, for personal use and by organizations. There are no content or use restrictions for this TLD.

Afilias will launch and sustain TLD» to support the needs of stakeholders in the organic community. Afilias will design and position the .ORGANIC TLD to be known as one of the premiere resources for organic information on the Internet. The company will engage in marketing and branding, such as logo design and website development, as well as outreach and marketing support to registrars to establish this idea in the minds of the public. .ORGANIC will be designed to be user friendly, easy to use, interesting, and professionally relevant. Afilias then plans to sign up key registrars to register the first waves of .ORGANIC registrants, we plan to invest in a new TLD launch, complete with media outreach, PR campaigns and social media programs."

Governmental Advisory Committee. Considers and provides advice on the activities of ICANN as they relate to concerns of governments, particularly matters where there may be an interaction between ICANN's policies and various laws and international agreements or where they may affect public policy issues (ICANN Bylaws).

Top-Level Domain