The .mcdonalds
Dot Brand
McDonald's
Corporation is the world's largest food service retailer with over 33,000
restaurants in 119 countries. Its 1.7 million employees help to serve
around 68 million customers every day. The company's franchise model
means that around 80% of McDonald's restaurants are independently owned
and operated.
The application
for the .mcdonalds TLD will complement the company's business model
to "consistently deliver innovation and new products to meet customers'
changing needs and preferences". The new brand string will also
be in line with the public interest.
The McDonald's
brand domain will help differentiate the company by providing a distinctive
name space with simple navigation and intuitive access.
The Applicant
makes mention of its existing domain name portfolio which contains many
"exact match" domains like mcdonalds.jobs, mcdonalds.co.za,
mcdonalds.tel, mcdonalds.com.mx and mcdonalds.it.
The application
notes that in the current domain name system businesses are limited
by the unavailability or high expense of acquiring a desired domain
name. Needs are being unmet. This problem is amplified for companies
that operate globally. The brand domains will help to resolve this problem
by facilitating almost unlimited naming options.
McDonald's
is a universally-recognised global brand with its "McDonald's"
trademark registered in more than 170 countries and territories for
a wide variety of goods and services in numerous International Classes.
"McDonald's"
was ranked the fourth most valuable brand name in the world by BrandZ
who valued it at about USD 81 billion. The .mcdonalds string will be
an important opportunity to build and protect the valuable brand. Fostering
its brand reputation is a paramount consideration. The TLD will help
customers connect with the brand online and assure its authenticity.
Another
paramount goal is to promote McDonald's as an innovative organization.
New "on demand" domain options will enable the company to
help customers by providing new, streamlined and accessible choices
and destinations. New domains will be created that are related to "specific
marketing and specialty product development".
McDonald's
states that it will launch communication campaigns to drive consumers
to its branded URLs, without providing details.
Given
the restricted nature of the .mcdonalds gTLD, the projected number
of registrations is likely to be limited. It is anticipated that no
more than 100 domain names will be registered in the first year. However,
over the next few years, the number of registrations may increase
to about 500 domain names.
Consumer
trust is also a paramount consideration. Confidence will be increased
through the elimination of user confusion. Customers will come to know
that a .mcdonalds website's content is authoritative and genuine. McDonald's
will implement the necessary technical and policy measures to maximise
security. Personal and confidential information will be protected.
In line
with the general growth and sophistication of the internet, online crime
has also evolved. Activities such as data breaches, hacking, phishing
and other malicious conduct has resulted in "loss of consumer confidence
beyond mere monetary harm".
.mcdonalds
will facilitate greater trust and assurance from internet users connecting
with McDonald's online, whilst still allowing convenient and efficient
interaction.
 Geographic
Dot Brands
McDonald's
respects the GAC's principles regarding New gTLDs and will initially
comply with the requirements of Specification 5 of the Registry Agreement.
These requirements state that applicants must reserve from registration
certain standardized lists of country & territory names that are
sensitive for various national governments.
However,
McDonald's considers that these requirements are more applicable to
open registry TLD operators rather than single-registrant operational
models such as its dot brand.
The Applicant
believes that the incorporation of geographic terms in its domain names
will be valuable to online visitors because they will be reassured that
content will be locally relevant and resonant with local customs and
regulations. Its application states that an important part of its business
model is to provide "locally relevant restaurant experiences".
...McDonald's
Corporation believes that the use of geographic terms can provide
great benefit and simplicity to internet users because these terms
are intuitive ways to resolve to McDonald's Corporation's content
that is specifically relevant and targeted to users in the particular
geographic region.
While the
Applicant concludes by stating that it "will not use geographic
names until ICANN has approved such use" it will actively explore
a process to facilitate the use of such terms. The terms can help mitigate
against the risk of unnecessary user confusion and benefit the public.
McDonald's respects the sovereign interests of various governments.
It suggests various options including contacting the GAC or the governments
concerned to obtain either approval or non-objection to the use of geographic
identifiers with a proposed 90-day objection period.
Generally,
it is extremely unlikely that McDonald's Corporation's tightly controlled
use of any cc.mcdonalds or countryname.mcdonalds domain name could
be confusing or detrimental to users, or otherwise offensive to any
country.
NOTE: cc
= country code
At a later
date McDonald's leaves open the possibility it may wish to use internationalized
domain names and foreign languages to further enhance its goal of interaction
at the local level.
Possible .mcdonalds
Brand Domains
Order.mcdonalds
Restaurants.mcdonalds
BigMac.mcdonalds
Menu.mcdonalds
Deals.mcdonalds
Coupons.mcdonalds
Malibu.mcdonalds
SantaMonica.mcdonalds
VeniceBeach.mcdonalds
Jobs.mcdonalds
Notes
Brand
names mentioned on this site are registered trademarks or trademarks
of their respective corporations. This site claims no association
with or endorsement by any of these corporations and their marks are
mentioned only to illustrate opinion presented in the public interest.
All quotations
on this page are from the respective companies' official ICANN brand
TLD applications unless otherwise stated.
Many possible
theoretical dot brands are mentioned (in English). There are also countless
possibilities in other languages. This has significant potential value
for international navigation.
This site
is focused on reporting the strategic impact of the brand domains on
internet communication, competition and commerce, and some comment is
speculative.
It is not
a comprehensive overview of what some of the world's largest corporations
have chosen to reveal about their plans for the implementation of their
proprietary domain strings.
ICANN is
particularly concerned with the technical, financial, security and legal
issues associated with the new TLDs. These issues are beyond the scope
of this website.
For a comprehensive
overview of the brand domains and their impact on the web, refer to
ICANN's website and the individual applications (large parts of which
are publicly published).
If you
have a particular interest in an individual company, the public aspects
of their applications are available for download via these ICANN links:
You can also search a complete list of applicants there.
ICANN
new gTLD applications
ICANN
official website
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