gTLDs – The quiet Internet revolution

gTLDs: the quiet

Internet revolution

David Green

Head of Global Digital Marketing, KPMG

Nov 2014

© 2014 KPMG International Cooperative (“KPMG International”), a Swiss entity. Member firms of the KPMG network of

independent firms are affiliated with KPMG International. KPMG International provides no client services. No member

firm has any authority to obligate or bind KPMG International or any other member firm third parties, nor does KPMG

International have any such authority to obligate or bind any member firm. All rights reserved.

Agenda

Digital disruption | The Third Industrial Revolution

What just happened? | a quick summary of ICANN and this liberalization process

Universal Acceptability | ensuring the new domains are recognized everywhere

(Much) more than a domain name | competitive strategic and technological advantage

Project plan to launch | Governance, contracts, operational models, resourcing, timeline

Uh, oh.. we didn’t apply | Mitigate your strategic disadvantage.

Google and SEO | Google comments and what early indications are

Space is the place | Brand benefits, and concerns, in an expanded domain name space

Platform for innovation | The Quiet Revolution takes shape

You are not alone | Brand Registry Group

gTLDs: The Quiet Internet Revolution | Nov 2014 1





Digital disruption


Economist, Oct 2014

World Economy – the 3rd Wave: Digital Revolution

“Technological revolutions are best

appreciated from a distance.”

http://www.economist.com/printedition/2012-04-21

http://www.economist.com/printedition/2012-04-21

http://www.thethirdindustrialrevolution.com/masterPlan.cfm

http://www.thethirdindustrialrevolution.com/masterPlan.cfm

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21621800-digital-revolution-bringing-sweeping-change-labour-markets-both-rich-and-poor


http://www.secondmachineage.com/

http://www.secondmachineage.com/






Digital maturity = business performance


“The higher a company’s level of digital maturity, the

better its financial performance is likely to be.”

more profitable

26%higher market cap

12% 9%

“CEOs and other senior executives are increasingly engaged

as their companies step up efforts to build digital enterprises.”

more revenue from

existing assets





What just happened?

ICANN, the body responsible for managing domain names and IP address, decided to liberalise the domain

name space (DNS), a critical aspect of the Internet’s infrastructure, with two key goals:

Expansion

Increase choice and competition in the domain name space:

• Single biggest expansion of existing market - primary motivation of incumbent domain industry applicants

(i.e. sell lots more domains)

• Asserting identity e.g. geopolitical (city and regional TLDs such as .London), community (e.g. .gay),

culture & language (IDNs)

Innovation

To ‘enhance the utility of the DNS’ - new and innovative uses:

• Changes in the use of records fields in registry database

• Recombinant innovation – meshing registry database with other technologies (encryption, mobile, social)

• NOT the same thing as creativity in naming and memorable addressing

Reuters, Jan 2012: Internet revolution dawns with .yournamehere domains

Appropriately ‘Quiet revolution’ has also been used to describe the Internet of Things


http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/12/us-internet-domains-idUSTRE80B14D20120112

http://www.slideshare.net/GaldeMerkline/eiu-internet-business-index-web-29491998





What just happened? Timeline and program status


Consultation and

documentation

Applications ICANN gTLD

‘Reveal Day’

Evaluations by

external providers

Objections, Auctions,

GAC rulings

Technical

‘delegation’ tests

Go Live

1,930

applicants

341

Withdraw

432

Delegated gTLDs

(i.e. live)

1157

Currently proceeding

through program

19

Community

35

Geographic

35

International

Domain names

(IDNs)

600

Brand

applicants

513

Requested

Spec 13

500

Original ICANN

projection on

applicant volumes

Jan 2012

TIMELINE

June 2012 From June 2012 onwards

STATUS

1,930

applicants

Jan 2008





Why did brands apply?

There were almost 600 brand applications, and reasons for applying were broad:

Contractual/commercial

Digital channels, esp. websites are critical revenue channels for many business e.g. ecommerce

Up until now could only purchase a domain through a third party reseller known as a ‘registrar’

Now brands can have direct ownership of critical aspect of internet infrastructure


Brand

Domain owner

Registrar

Domain seller

Registry

Domain operator

BEFORE: No contractual redress against the operator of the domain – the

‘registry’ if they had a critical failure or failed to meet ICANN Registry

SLAs such as uptime and security

Brand

Domain owner

AND operator

Registrar

Acts as agent for brand to

delegate domains to its registry

NOW: Brand has direct contract for critical aspect

of its internet facing infrastructure







Enhanced security

All new gTLDs will have enhanced technical security – mandatory to utilize DNSSEC (Secure)

Request is encrypted and therefore cannot be hijacked and redirected to a fake site - fight fraud

Major brands from the Financial Services sector (71 in total) were amongst applicants for this reason

Branding Authentication

Closed brands can control who they allocate domain names to – so if its not ‘dot brand’ its not the real thing.

Luxury consumer goods manufacturers were attracted to apply for this reason – fight counterfeiting – only

authorized resellers and merchants would be allocated a domain

Branding Association

‘Ownership’ of term that corresponds to market segment or product category – although Government

Advisory Council subsequently ruled that closed gTLDs that correspond to a generic keyword have to

operate as if an open gTLD i.e. non-discriminatory (but can be qualified) access to other registrants








Analytics

Brand registries will now have full end-to-end analytics on internet traffic

Web and social analytics provide insight to user behaviour whilst on your digital channels

Registry traffic analytics - not just operational – can be real source of business insight on traffic

Innovation We’ll talk about this more later…






Brand applicants and industry sectors


Source: Trademarks and Brands Online – ‘Dot brand’ gTLDs: owning the territory, Sept 2014

TLDWatch for status of all domain registration volumes

http://www.trademarksandbrandsonline.com/article/dot-brand-gtlds-owning-the-territory

http://www.tldwatch.com/tld-summary-table/





Not a domain, a gTLD registry system


Super fast servers

at world root of

internet

More secure point-

to-point

communications

via DNSSEC

Massively scalable

database

Platform for

innovation

Unique addressing

Although most brand registries will (initially) be

resolving queries of lower magnitude than the

millions of queries per second against .com registry

Proven ability to host hundreds of millions of

unique entries

Enhanced security of internet communications.

Additional layers of verification can be added e.g.

Verisign encryption with dot bank

Disruption to business models e.g. new/greater

utilization of records fields in DNS

Commonly cited brand domain benefits: clear

addressing, brand attributes, authentication, IP

protection, SEO..





Universal Acceptability

Browsers and other internet applications will readily adapt

to recognizing new gTLDs

Brand Registry Group – working with Google and Mozilla

Foundation on this issue (and other standards)

But there will be a longer time lag for software and other

enterprise applications

This has been ongoing programme of activity for ICANN, but

was a big topic of focus at the recent ICANN 51 in Los

Angeles

WIPR interview – Dec 13: KPMG moving from dot com

KPMG would have a phased transition: transfer web

addressing first and then gradually emails as emails are

often required for authentication and access to enterprise

systems


http://www.worldipreview.com/article/kpmg-migrating-from-com

Project plan to

launch (and

beyond)





CXO concerns and gTLD capabilities


• Innovation in digital delivery of

customer services

• Customers signal brand affinity

through unique domain

• Supports shift to internet-centric

business processes and models

Customer Revenue Growth

• Integration with existing ERP

systems for operational

efficiencies

• Signal authentic IP

• Possible reengineer existing

business processes

Operating Effectiveness

• Improved insight and control of

information flows - improve

business processes or customer

engagement

• Innovative use of DNS record

fields for geo-targeting &

verification of services

Data Analytics

• gTLD registries are outsourced

IaaS and could readily evolve to

SaaS

• gTLD platform for innovation –

services and even business

models

Technology transformation

• Outsourced IaaS – flexible

infrastructure

• Enhanced cybersecurity:

DNSSEC, additional certification

and encryption, DDOS protection

at registry before web servers

• Disaster recovery: zone files at

world root of Internet – business

continuity

IT Management





Timeline for dot brand applicants


• Contracts: ICANN and registrar

• Define taxonomy, policies, operating

process, governance etc.

• Domain dashboard + registrar

onboarding

• Transition to delegation

• Launch (NIC website)

• 90 days Names collision wait period

• One domain in first year minimum

• Explicit change management plan

including extensive internal and external

launch communications plan

• Web addressing transition only - domain

redirects remove need to change all

stationary, signage etc. overnight – can

be updated when replaced/gradually.

Obviously digital channels such as

social media accounts, email signatures

etc. can be updated quickly

Immediate Medium term

• Work with vendors on universal

acceptability

• Embedding internal operational

process and policy

• Extend gTLD to other enterprise

applications esp. email

• Innovation experimentation – small

scale testing, observe market

developments etc.

• Ongoing reporting to ICANN

Longer term

• Full transition to secure

gTLD registry across all internet

facing enterprise applications

• Critical aspect of internet facing

infrastructure

• Innovation takes off –

augmentation and/or combination

with other technologies

• Ongoing reporting to ICANN





Resourcing scope and costs


Primary drivers for many

– but not all – brand

applicants

Usually the internal

constituency historically

most familiar with ICANN

IP/Legal

Being asked to work out

business use cases

Digital / eCommerce

Registry is IaaS

Integrations with

enterprise applications

Security, risk, testing

IT

Navigating the

complexities of ICANN

multi-stakeholder model

of engagement

Preparation and

submission of application

Navigating evaluation

process

gTLD consultants

gTLD consultant for

application, evaluation

and beyond

Registry provider RFP

Data Escrow provider

ICANN contract

Registrar(s)

Procurement

Internal awareness and

education on policy,

process etc.

External market promotion

on addressing, new

capabilities etc.

Marketing and

communications

Navigating the

complexities of ICANN

multi-stakeholder model

of engagement

Responses for technical

questions in application

Transition to delegation

testing (launch)

Operations and ICANN

reporting

Registry Service

Provider

ICANN requirement –

enter/activate domains to

your registry

Operations and ICANN

reporting

Registrar

External Internal





Project plan to launch

Area Considerations

Governance - Identify an overall Executive Sponsor

- Steering Group comprised of senior business units leads

- Implementation Group comprised of operational functions responsible

for launching, operating and developing the registry

Contracts - Back-end registry provider – done

- ICANN contract – Spec 13 + organizational specific negotiations

-Registrar(s) – RFP: Scale, stability, security, sophistication of technology,

SLAs, compliance mechanisms, technical compatibility etc

- Other third parties (e.g. managed services based on gTLD registry)

Budgets Understand minimum committed costs (ICANN, RSP etc)

Central budget vs distributed cost centres

Ensure integration to budget forecasting






Project plan to launch

Area Considerations

Management process and

systems

Ensuring and reporting on compliance with policies and

security (ICANN and internal) and legal (e.g. data

protection)

Back end systems compatibility with eco system of

providers: RSP and registrar(s)

Analytics and reporting, customer and operations insights

Support staff and processes to support business as well as

providers

Systems integration e.g. CRM, stock inventory etc.

Internal comms and

stakeholder engagement

Educating the business – new organizational capability,

exciting on vision & strategy

Policies, process, contacts and compliance

Change management plan and resources

External launch: from

communications to

promotions

Branding and marketing strategy

Transition planning – akin to brand migration plans

Campaigns – educate and entice customers






KPMG domain policy

Centralized domain management

• centralized portfolio enables most efficient overview and control of domains

• process complex acquisitions and transfers on behalf of member firms and

assist in sunrise periods

• value-add services such as domain protection and the ability to drive through

on-line dispute resolution and cease and desist activities without the need to

engage in-house legal help.

Masterbrand strategy

• KPMG has a single ‘masterbrand’ as opposed to a portfolio of brands

• Consolidated many micro sites to single global common technology platform

• Primacy of kpmg.com domain – SEO authority (in/out bound links)

• All the while prosecuting dot KPMG gTLD application

• With transition to dot KPMG gTLD, we will:

• Update policy to prevent second level registrations that correspond to other trademarks –

make sure we aren’t (inadvertently) infringing IP

• Reintroduce the use of ‘www’ in other channels - simple and intuitive web addressing for

external users not familiar with new gTLDs

• Execute change management plan incl. launch of extensive internal communications






Communications


If you didn’t

apply..





Forrester report 2011


Before applications for round one opened in

Jan 2012, Forrester published a report of the

strategic significance of this liberalization

process:

Companies Are Looking At gTLDs Defensively

• It will increase brand and trademark protection costs.

• Consumers won’t change their dot-com habits.

• They will lose search equity.

• But…

CMOs Must treat this as A Strategic opportunity:

• Control of online brand presence.

• Proof that your communications are authentic.

• Availability of more domain names.

• First-mover advantage.

• Search engines will give authority to dot-brand TLDs.

What it all means:

• TLDs will transform the look of the internet for

brands and users

• The biggest brands should apply in the first round.

• Dot-com will become the long-tail name space.

• Web users will surprise us with their adaptability.

• Doing nothing will be a career-limiting move for

CMOs.

https://www.forrester.com/CMOs+Must+Drive+Their+Firms+Domain+Strategy+Now/fulltext/-/E-RES58783





If you didn’t apply

Then you are at a strategic disadvantage.

Round one brand applicants will have a multi-year advantage.

Any competitor that did apply now has a valuable technology asset that you cannot currently replicate

Many brands now realize that this liberalization is just about domain names, but about operating a secure

gTLD registry database at the world root of the internet

There will be thousands of brands in round two of the liberalization process – but Akram Attalah at ICANN

has now confirmed that won’t that won’t start until 2017 now

Brand association and addressing

more memorable naming that closely relates to line of business or value offer






Phase two of DNS liberalization

ICANN application and evaluation process should be smoother and more predictable second time around –

numerous issues were encountered and lengthy discourse and consultation via ICANN multi stakeholder

model met lengthy time to resolution

However, even if ICANN operational infrastructure and resourcing is further scaled up there could be an

equally long time frame to delegation due to the anticipated sheer volume of brand applicants

There will be new issues – prioritization: community vs closed brand vs domain industry applicants

Likely to be much fewer domain name industry actors applying for generics:

Many of the (perceived) most valuable generic terms (in English anyway) have been speculatively snapped up

Pressure from investors to realize returns – focus on making a profit from what they already have

However greater number of contention, disputes, auctions – as the real value of a gTLD registry system

becomes apparent there will be fierce commercial and legal battles for terms






Right here, right now

Evaluate the existing new gTLD domains and consider if they are:

Not applicable

Closed brand registries will not be making domains available to third parties

Some domains clearly have no relevancy to/association with your business e.g. kpmg.pizza

Opportunity

Presents opportunity to distinguish business unit, product or service, marketing campaign etc. e.g. KPMG

Capital is a Venture Capital fund set up by KPMG to invest in Data & Analytics technologies = kpmg.capital

Defensive

Domain is semantically related to your business, but you would not go to market with this – register

defensively to protect brand and redirect to other domain/URL e.g. kpmg.international

Protection

Some generic gTLDs clearly pose a threat to brands and one wonders if this is part of their business

model/anticipated revenue stream e.g. .sucks | .wtf | .fail

Round 2 liberalization – ICANN should have higher burden of proof of market applicability for such genericsgTLDs: The Quiet Internet Revolution | Nov 2014 24





Legal/IP/Brand Protection

Review new approach to Brand Protection:

•Consolidate tools, budgets and resources (+registrar providers) to create integrated, always-on

approach

•Image/logo monitoring, Fraudulent association, Passing off, Malware

•DNS: Traffic Diversion, Brand and Trademark Infringement

•Review new gTLDs - identify and prioritize areas for actions (protection, defensive, opportunity) –

registrar ‘watch list’ service?

Your options for your brand - educate internally on new top level rights protections

mechanisms (RPMs):

•Trademark Clearing House

•Sunrise registration

•Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS)

•Post Delegation Dispute Resolution Procedure (PD DRP)

•Registry Restriction Dispute Resolution Procedure (RR DRP)


Google and SEO





Google and SEO


“Are you guys crazy? The

Internet is changing. Google

has to be a part of that.”

Reaction of Larry Page when first presented with proposal to apply for gTLDs

•Google staff had originally only planned to apply for four of their big brands: Google, YouTube,

Android and Chrome

•Consequently ended up with a much broader and more ambitious program (101 applications)

•Read transcript from ‘New gTLD Stories’ session at ICANN 50 (PDF)

Larry Page, Google

C:/Users/dcgreen/Downloads/transcript-new-gtld-stories-23jun14-en (1).pdf





Google and SEO






Google and SEO

Dec 13 – I give interview to World Intellectual Property Review

– KPMG: migrating from .com – in which I cited SEO amongst

benefits

Criticized in Marketing Land article as being wrong - citing

Matt Cutts blog piece

But what I had actually said is that a gTLD would be a

contributing factor/signal;

“Google uses many different criteria in its relevance and

ranking algorithm. One of those is the domain name: if a

domain is a key term, it will have a greater relevance for

people searching for that key term. So any website under a

.kpmg domain is clearly owned and managed by KPMG, and

the domain should have a higher ranking in that regard,

although this will not mitigate the need to address other SEO

considerations”


1. Technical: code, site map, page load time, domain

2. Links: in/outbound links

3. Content: location and frequency of terms, semantic

relevance

http://www.worldipreview.com/article/kpmg-migrating-from-com

http://marketingland.com/kpmg-says-its-leaving-com-for-kpmg-domain-wrongly-cites-seo-as-a-reason-68998





Google and SEO

“When I think about the new gTLD program, I think that's the opportunity that we

have in order to fundamentally reshape the way that people use the Internet so that

people can get to specific pieces of information using domain names and using

identifiers that have three really critical characteristics:”

1. Readable (IDNs, humans can understand, compared to URL shortener such as bit.ly)

2. Memorable (creative combinations of domain and gTLD e.g. www.drive.bmw, www.run.nike)

3. Meaningful (has semantic relevance and or geographic context e.g. www.plumber.london)

Google Algorithm Change History: frequently refined, periodic overhauls (Pigeon, Penguin, Panda etc.)

The Internet is changing , so Google algorithms will change


Jordyn Buchanan, Google

New gTLDs panel, ICANN 50,

June 2014

http://www.drive.bmw/

http://www.run.nike/

http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

Space is the place.

Brand benefits - Domain name space





Space is the place

“This is a new platform, people can create what they want as brands”

Hal Bailey, Strategic Partnerships Director, Google

Digital Marketing & gTLD Strategy Congress - Sep 2013, London

Memorable and meaningful domain addressing could raise brand recall and engagement

Multiple access points not the same as brand.com/slash – change user behaviour and targeting


• Enhanced security

• Contractual control

• Branding Authentication

• Branding Association

• Analytics and Insight

• Innovation

• SEO benefits – semantic

relevance + speed

gTLD applicant benefits

• Memorable, meaningful

addressing

• Creative naming = higher brand

recall

• Some SEO benefit – semantic

relevance

• Migration to more memorable

domain e.g. rebelinkmag.com to

rebel.ink later this year

Benefits for all brands

• Increased cybersquatting

• Audience confusion

• ICANN transparency and

accountability

Brand concerns

http://momentumevents.com/gtldlondon/gtldlondon-agenda/

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/64762-amazon-book-and-the-new-top-level-domain-names.htmlpath/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/64762-amazon-book-and-the-new-top-level-domain-names.html





Brand concerns

As we saw earlier, there are several new IP rights protection mechanisms within the expanded domain name

space

Trademark Clearing House is a central database where brands can file trademarks – but this only provides an

alert to potential infringers – it does not prevent registration of domains that infringe trademarks - much to

the disappointment of the many brands who contributed to ICANN discussions on TMCH

Some of the larger generics registry operators have introduced additional registry rights protection

mechanisms e.g. Domain Protected Marks list form Donuts who operate 307 of the new generic TLDs

Recent research by World Trademark Review (Sept 2014) showed that domain cyber squatting is rampant in

new gTLDs

- Brands were registering in new city gTLDs but much les so in generics – possibly due to obvious non

relevance

Public awareness, understanding and adoption of new gTLDs is a still a concern – not many live, high profile

examples (www.annualreport.axa)


http://www.worldtrademarkreview.com/blog/detail.aspx?g=679f2763-dc11-4016-88ef-9391c0e6d50b

http://www.annualreport.axa/

Platform for

innovation





The Quiet Revolution


Dec 2013 – EIU report on Internet of Things Nov 2014 – IoT has since exploded into

public consciousness and is HBR business

magazine front cover

http://www.slideshare.net/GaldeMerkline/eiu-internet-business-index-web-29491998

https://hbr.org/archive-toc/BR1411





Platform for innovation

“There is going to be a lot of innovation and a lot of change” Hall Bailey, Google

You are going to hear this term a lot once brand gTLDs really start to become operational

Hmm, what can you do with a massively scalable, secure database, at the world root of an internet that

increasingly connects not just people, but, well, everything….

Changes to infrastructure powered broader economic and social changes in previous industrial revolutions

Perhaps think less about domain names, rather, domain codes – each registry entry is a uniquely identifiable;

unique key field = uniform resource identifier

Customer accounts/secure sign on

Private, secure, brand social networks

Integrate existing codes e.g. electronic product codes

Enhanced analytics drive better business insight and thus further innovation

Possible ecosystem of registries – synergistic operations

Momentum gTLD webinar | Nov 2014 36





Platform for innovation


Registry TLD database

IP record MX record Record 3 Record 4 Etc.

DNSSEC

Certificates: SSL, EV etc.

Application layer

Other types of data

stored at the domain

records level

New/different certificates

for access and

authentication

New applications from

third parties driven by

private brand registries

e.g. analytics integration





Video clips


“There will be new business models

and new ways of using DNS not seen

before..

The most important opportunity is

making that expansion and extension

useful

It remains to be seen how well they

(gTLDs) will be used to make the

Internet functionally valuable for

users.”

“A lot of growth, a lot of

innovation…an exploration of new

business models and methods of

using domain names that have not

been seen before.”

“With the entry of 100’s of private

brand actors into the registry internet

infrastructure, domain registry

operators will be increasingly required

to learn the business models of their

clients..

..Unique domain serial codes will be

used for secure authentication of

digital delivery of services and

information..

..The amount of machine to machine

traffic on the Internet will eclipse the

amount of human generated traffic.”

You are not alone

Brand Registry Group





Brand Registry Group

On ‘Reveal Day’ the world learnt that:

• Applications to operate a secure gTLD registry exceeded initial

ICANN projections x4

• one third of all applicants were brands who intended to operate

closed registries

The Brand Registry Group was formed to represent the interests of

brands operating closed registries:

• Regular representation to, and meetings with, ICANN staff e.g.

• Helped secure brand specific Spec 13 for brands

• Advocacy to governments and public bodies including the

ICANN Government Advisory Committee

• Networking opportunities for members e.g.

• Discounts on sponsored conferences incl. Momentum

• Regular calls on issues ranging from contracts, registry

standards, best practices e.g.

• Webpage naming standards and navigation

Members represent over $1.16Trillion of economic activityMomentum gTLD webinar | Nov 2014 40





Also available:


Maximise the benefit from your new TLD

Third Industrial Revolution – driven by digital

Internet changes – Mobile, Social, ‘Things’

gTLDs – more than just a name

Key characteristics of gTLD registries

Mapping CXO concerns and gTLD capabilities

Project plan to launch – big questions to be

answered

Project plan to launch – areas for consideration

gTLD brand benefits

Closed, Restricted Open and Open gTLDs

Domain industry considerations

View previous Momentum gTLD presentation on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6rQqfIywAg

Thank you

@davidcgreen

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network of independent firms are affiliated with KPMG International. KPMG International provides no client

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The KPMG name, logo and “cutting through complexity” are registered trademarks or trademarks of KPMG

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gTLDs – The quiet Internet revolution