The .rocher Dot
Brand
The Ferrero
Group is a leading manufacturer of chocolate and confectionery and is
comprised of more than 70 affiliated companies. The group operates in
more than 100 countries and has more than 21,000 employees. Ferrero
Rocher is the world's number one boxed chocolate brand.
Ferrero
Rocher is the "main pillar within the Ferrero range of boxed chocolates"
and is one of the group's most important and famous brands. Ferrero
has a portfolio of global intellectual property rights and the .rocher
extension will serve to strengthen and harmonise its brand protection
strategies. A paramount aim is to enhance the online integrity and equity
of the Ferrero/Rocher brand. These aims will broadly support the group's
strategic and commercial goals.
The .rocher
TLD will create a platform that all Ferrero's business units can use
to build a consistent global digital presence. It will also enable the
group to use emerging internet technologies to stay at the forefront
of innovation. For example, Ferrero already has plans to offer apps
and widgets on the platform. Customers, employees and other stakeholders
will perceive this differentiation and invention and benefit from it.
The string
will also facilitate a secure and stable platform for content, communications
and promotion which will be reliable, accurate and trustworthy. Being
a single registrant TLD, the .rocher brand domains will be marked by
integrity to enhance the company's reputation and brand.
The application
also implies that a significant proportion of its online activities
may ultimately take place on its brand domains. One of Ferrero's aims
is:
To provide
a platform for the delivery of secure digital material for consumers,
key stakeholders, business partners and employees, a platform that
potentially will host all our digital communication initiatives both
from a corporate and a brand perspective across all the Ferrero Business
Units...
Online
content will be authentic, transparent and accessible. There is an opportunity
for greater clarity in the domain name space.
We are
eager to operate a registry with shorter domain names that are universally
applicable across the globe...
We look
forward to utilising our new registry in conjunction with our current
domains and are keen to market under the term .Rocher if the new gTLD
process is a success. It enables brands to leave behind complex naming
hierarchies inherent in country code extensions.
If the
new brand domains are deemed to be successful, Ferrero will use intuitive
naming options with .rocher domains. This simplicity will help consumers.
...one
major goal of the .Rocher registry is the protection of consumers
from confusion. In a sense, the .Rocher registry is itself a tool
to eliminate or minimize that social cost because a .Rocher domain
will signpost authenticity.
Ferrero
will work with Neustar, its chosen back-end registry services operator,
to ensure there is no malicious activity in the .rocher name space.
Various illegal or fraudulent activities, phishing, pharming, spam,
malware distribution, botnets and fast flux hosting and so on will be
safeguarded against.
Ferrero
has an extensive, defined, and documented process for taking the necessary
action of removing a domain from the zone when its presence in the
zone poses a threat to the security and stability of the infrastructure
of the Internet or the registry.
The right
to privacy and the confidentiality of personal data will be strongly
protected.
 Geographic
Dot Brands
Ferrero
is committed to operating the .rocher extension in compliance with the
Registry Agreement. The company will follow Specification 5 and GAC
advice and block country & territory names from initial registration.
These names
are contained in a UN Group of Experts list of standardized names, a
UN Working Group list and the ISO 3166-1 list.
Ferrero
anticipates that the brand domain owners will collectively be interested
in being allowed to use geographical terms within their TLDs in the
future.
We envisage
that over time, there will be demand from brand TLDs leading to the
development of a standardised process for requesting GAC review and
ICANN approval for the release of country and territory names for
registration by the Registry Operator when the registry is a single
entity registry.
When a
registration process is implemented, Ferrero expects to apply for the
release of geographical names within the .rocher TLD. In turn, the Applicant
will develop a process in which governments and relevant official authorities
will be able to challenge any such registration that is perceived to
be misleading or abusive.
Possible .rocher
Brand Domains
Ferrero.rocher
Chocolate.rocher
Confectionery.rocher
Home.rocher
Gifts.rocher
Shops.rocher
MonCheri.rocher
FerreroRondnoir.rocher
SocialEnterprises.rocher
About.rocher
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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