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Status:	Proposed
Language:	Chinese (Hani)
Translates to:	website
Type:	IDN gTLD
Category:	Technology
Priority #:	99 - Zodiac 106 - Global Website TLD Asia Limited

.网站 is an IDN gTLD being proposed in ICANN's New gTLD Program.

Current Applicants

1. Global Website TLD Asia Limited
2. Zodiac (RISE VICTORY LIMITED)

Application Details

Zodiac

Excerpted from TLD application response to question #18:

"Zodiac Holdings Limited (“Zodiac”) was founded and incorporated in Cayman Islands by James Seng in 2008 in anticipation of the launch of the ICANN new gTLD program. Currently, it is headquartered in Hong Kong and has an operation center in Beijing, China. The team consists of experienced veterans in the global and China domain name industry like James Seng and former China Network Information Center (CNNIC) employees such as Eugene Li.

James Seng is one of the Internet pioneers in Singapore and is widely recognized as an international expert in numerous Internet areas. He is well known as the inventor of IDN and has co-chaired the IDN Working Group in IETF from 1999 to 2004, leading to the standardization of IDN.

Eugene Li, is the former Vice President of China Network Information Center (CNNIC). During his 7 years tenure at CNNIC, Eugene has launched initiatives that doubled domain name registrations and helped CNNIC become the no. 1 ccTLD and no. 2 TLD by volume. At the time when Eugene left to join Zodiac, CNNIC has over 13 million domain name registrations.

Under the vision and leadership of James Seng, with the support of angels, venture capital firm and family offices of approximately USD 20 million in place for the application and operation of the new gTLDs, Zodiac is seeking to become the first and largest privately held ICANN-approved TLD registry operator in Asia. It intends to operate TLDs that are centric to the Chinese culture.

[..]

The Applicant expects “.STRING” to initially reach about 104,098 in the 1st year, and grow to 148,712 and 208,196 by the 2nd and 3rd year respectively.

[..]

The pricing for “.STRING” is intentionally set at similar price point to other gTLDs as the Applicant envisions “.STRING” to be widely adopted as the gTLD of choice for the Chinese Internet community."

Global Website TLD Asia Limited

Excerpted response from question #18 in TLD application:

"The vision of the .网站 TLD is that through the development of an open generic namespace supporting full Chinese IDNs, it could become a nucleus for Internet activities from and for the Chinese community, and become a driver of economic and social value for Chinese users around the world.

The mission and purposes of the .网站 TLD are:

1. To develop a namespace that is meaningful to the Chinese language community and is globally recognized as a prime Chinese IDN gTLD;

2. To operate a secure, stable and trusted Chinese IDN gTLD with a reputation as a reliable online destination on the Internet;

3. To foster the sense of connection and ownership from the Chinese language community to the Internet, especially to engage participation in global Internet governance;

4. To promote the accessibility of the Internet to the majority of Chinese users whose primary spoken and written language is Chinese; and,

5. To serve the global Chinese language community with an open generic namespace supporting a full Chinese IDN experience.

Based on the broad generic nature of the .网站 TLD, Global Website TLD Asia Limited (the ‘Registry’) aspires to become the domain of choice for individuals and companies developing websites serving the Chinese language community.

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Upon Go-Live of the registry, the TLD will be an open registry accepting registrations from individuals and businesses around the world. To uphold its reputation as a socially responsible TLD, beyond the basic ICANN requirements, the Registry is committed to put in place a comprehensive Sunrise and Startup process (Question 29) as well as effective Abuse Prevention (Question 28) and Rights Protection Mechanisms (Question 29) to strengthen the orderly and stable introduction of the TLD.

As a Chinese IDN TLD, the Registry will also put in place best practices for the handling of IDN Variants and other IDN related policies to support our goals to become a reputable domain of choice for Chinese websites."