The .tiffany Dot Brand

Tiffany and Company is a provider of luxury goods and specializes in diamond & silver jewelry and other silver products. The company also offers items including watches, china, crystal, fragrances and leather goods. Tiffany has 64 stores in the USA and 103 international stores — and has more than 9,000 employees.

The .tiffany extension is intended to provide an intuitive and hierarchical online platform for the company's goods and services. It will be a centralized source of information.

At time of filing the Applicant noted that there had been insufficient time and market experience to "fully analyze and evaluate all potential use case options".

The .tiffany TLD will increase awareness of and navigation to Tiffany's content, offerings and marketing campaigns. It will achieve this via this new platform of short and memorable Internet naming options. As the company expands, it will pursue opportunities to use the .tiffany string on new platforms and in new channels.

...Tiffany believes that a .TIFFANY gTLD has the potential to provide an innovative, virtual avenue to Tiffany products that will deepen and broaden its relationship with customers.

Differentiation and innovation will be driving factors. The new unified framework of domain names will create great opportunities in this regard. Tiffany leverages emerging technologies to publish content and the TLD has "the potential to serve as a cornerstone of this online strategy".

Another paramount concern will be the on-going protection of the company's valuable trademark.

A four-stage rollout is envisioned for the .tiffany brand TLD which will likely take multiple years to conclude:

1. A limited number of domains will be registered for testing purposes. This will ensure security is maintained, seamless access occurs and interoperability with software and online applications is successful. Early preparation for full implementation will commence.

2. More widespread internal corporate use of domains will commence. Strategies to migrate Internet traffic towards the new TLD will be evaluated. Consideration will also be given to the possibility of extending registration rights to licensees and other strategic partners.

3. Depending on strategic & business factors and an evaluation of stage two, Tiffany may begin to implement the permanent migration of traffic to its family of brand domains. A possible wider extension of registration rights may also occur at this stage.

4. Tiffany will complete a technical analysis of potential expansion and will take into account factors such as changes to the domain name industry and the impact of the other brand domains. Registration rights may be extended to a broader range of licensees, and even potentially, to Tiffany customers. Full assessment is expected to take at least five years.

Tiffany anticipates that its total number of domain registrations will be fewer than 10,000 in the first five years of the program.

Various factors will be taken into consideration such as projections of the company's existing operations, future business plans as outlined in annual reports & investor filings, an analysis of Tiffany's existing "current patchwork network of second-level domain names" and an evaluation of possible marketing initiatives.

NOTE: second-level = words left of the dot

Tiffany believes that the .TIFFANY gTLD will provide a trusted ecosystem experience for the millions of customers worldwide that purchase the company's luxury goods and services, as well as those who seek information that Tiffany provides, such as investors and members of the press.

Tiffany's usage and communication about the string will partly depend on factors such as customer recognition, the adoption rate and success of other brand domains, and the response of search engines. An analysis of consumer use of the Tiffany TLD will influence the appropriate media and advertising campaigns that the company will use to support it.

Tiffany will ensure a high standard of security is maintained to protect the TLD — and the company's core brand. The .tiffany string will serve as a trusted namespace that will benefit all stakeholders and minimize social costs. Tiffany hopes that ultimately its domains will enjoy the same level of "consumer recognition and trust" that is enjoyed by the .edu and .gov domain extensions.

It will provide a safe online experience. The limited scope of authorized registrations in the .tiffany string will be the primary way that Tiffany will mitigate against any possible abusive or misleading use of the namespace. All registrants will be "pre-authenticated".

Other brands will have no need for defensive registrations.

Tiffany will establish an Authorized Usage Policy whereby its websites will not be permitted to contravene general statutes or laws related to the Internet or e-commerce. Its "verified ecosystem" will also be protected against counterfeiting, phishing, pharming, virus distribution, fraud, spam, botnets, malware distribution, defamation, scams, intellectual property infringement, cybersquatting and other undesirable activities.

Tiffany is committed to providing best in class safeguards and will be closely monitoring other .BRAND applicants for suitable safeguards.

The company also intends to operate the .tiffany TLD with a privacy policy that is consistent with its existing published policy.

Geographic Dot Brands

Tiffany is aware that the issue of the protection of country & territory identifiers within the domain name system is an important one for national governments. Hence the company will, in the first instance, reserve from registration names in the internationally recognized lists contained in the New gTLD Applicant Guidebook.

Country terms contained in the ISO 3166-1 list, a United Nations Group of Experts manual on standardized names and a UN Working Group list of geographical names will be reserved.

Tiffany's current international websites serve as online stores, catalogs, and sources of news & brand information. They also offer geographically specificic content (in multiple languages). For example, the company operates sites like Tiffany.de, Tiffany.cn, Tiffany.co.jp and Tiffany.fr. The flagship site Tiffany.com offers users the convenience of selecting their own country location for a more local experience.

In light of this existing logical geographical system of finding relevant content, the company is interested in extending this principle in the new name space.

...Tiffany intends to explore the option of providing a hierarchical and intuitive framework for the .TIFFANY namespace by using geographical identifiers at the second level within the .TIFFANY namespace.

Tiffany would like to see if the use of country terms in the .tiffany space will drive innovation and increase functionality. As a responsible global business, it wishes to be able to use geographical terms in a "fair and non-misleading manner" and is committed to using its brand domains with minimal risk of misleading consumers.

...Tiffany looks forward to collaborating with other new gTLD Registry Operators (especially .BRANDs) in potentially working with ICANN's GAC to explore potential processes that could permit the release of initially reserved country names...

Possible .tiffany Brand Domains

Jewelry.tiffany
Jewellery.tiffany
Diamonds.tiffany
Silver.tiffany
SterlingSilver.tiffany
TimePieces.tiffany
Watches.tiffany
Perfume.tiffany
Crystal.tiffany
Accessories.tiffany
Registry.tiffany (specifically named in the application)
Luxury.tiffany
Style.tiffany
Search.tiffany
Stores.tiffany
About.tiffany

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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