The .xerox Dot Brand

Xerox Corporation is a global leader in document technology and services. It provides business process and document management to major corporations, government agencies, healthcare providers, schools, small businesses and the like. Xerox has annual sales exceeding $22 billion and operates in over 160 countries with more than 140,000 employees. The company has a global network of around 6,500 sales agents and concessionaires and 10,000 technology resellers. Xerox traces its origins back to 1906.

The .xerox extension is intended to become an intuitive and hierarchical new namespace for Xerox content. The strategy for these new domains — while yet to be fully devised and explored — will essentially be driven by and resonant with the company's business plans as described in annual reports and investor filings.

The string has "the potential to serve as a cornerstone" of its online strategy.

It will leverage the long years of experience gained with the xerox.com domain. This flagship website delivers news & information and also serves as a digital storefront.

Xerox believes that a .XEROX gTLD has the potential to provide an innovative, virtual avenue to Xerox products that will deepen and broaden its relationship with consumers.

At time of application, Xerox had not had time to fully evaluate "all potential use case options" but was nevertheless committed to proceeding. The company is well aware that the internet is growing and that consumers are using an expanding array of platforms and devices to access online content.

Xerox is primarily pursuing this application in ICANN's first round for defensive reasons given the uncertainty regarding when ICANN will be opening a second round.

A four-stage rollout is envisioned for the Xerox string:

1. Registration of a limited number of domains to facilitate testing to ensure secure & seamless operation and interoperability. Staff will make initial preparations for the transition to full delegation.

2. More widespread internal use of .xerox names will begin. Evaluation of stragegies to eventually migrate traffic from existing domains to new destinations will commence. Granting registration rights to licensees and strategic partners will also be considered.

3. Contingent upon an analysis of stage two, Xerox may begin the process of permanently migrating internet traffic to its "new family of branded gTLDs".

4. Based on the experience and evaluation of previous stages, the process will continue to evolve and consideration will be given to widening registration rights to more licensees, even potentially to approved Xerox customers.

Xerox anticipates that it will take at least five years to properly assess the collective impact of the brand domains and the corresponding evolution of the domain name system over that period. The company anticipates that by this time its registrations will be less than 10,000.

This assessment of the rollout will help determine the company's corresponding future public communication and advertising campaigns.

The .xerox string will create a wide range of possible short and memorable Internet addresses. These will assist in navigation to information about products, services, news and ad campaigns. It will become a single "trusted source" where consumers can make secure purchases.

Differentiation and innovation will be primary driving factors. One of the company's core values is to deliver quality and excellence in all its activities. The new .xerox extension will provide significant opportunities to enhance these goals.

Consumer awareness will be enhanced, and it will be simpler for visitors to avoid counterfeit sites which may use the company name. The ultimate aim is for consumer trust to be similar to that enjoyed by websites in the .gov and .edu namespaces.

The number of domain names registered will not measure the success of the gTLD, but rather success will be judged by the level of consumer recognition and trust that is placed in the .XEROX gTLD.

Xerox currently operates 213 websites covering 192 markets. Some of these sites are multi-lingual (eg. Canada — English/French). The Applicant believes that its new dot brand presents an opportunity to streamline its domain strategy, particularly if geographic identifiers are eventually approved by ICANN (see "Geographic Dot Brands" below.)

Xerox may ultimately extend registration rights to sales agents and resellers, while retaining control over the string. To date, it has been a challenge to ensure its agents (who may own their own websites) don't use the Xerox mark inappropriately or use it in their own domain names.

Providing this extended network of agents and resellers with registration and use of second-level domain names within the .XEROX gTLD is potentially a win-win situation for all involved parties. These agents and resellers are better able to market their strategic relationships with Xerox, and Xerox has the ability to revoke domain name rights in light of potential non-compliance.

Verisign, the backend registry service provider for the .xerox string, will provide a robust security foundation. As the operator of the dot com registry and other achievements, Verisign has a long successful history of providing secure services on the internet. (It operates zone servers and serves domain name system resolution from 76 global locations.)

Verisign's physical and system security methodology follows a mature, ongoing lifecycle that was developed and implemented many years before the development of the industry standards with which Verisign currently complies.

The primary safeguard for the .xerox dot brand will be "the limited universe of registrants that will be permitted to register with the .XEROX gTLD." The Applicant calls this a "verified ecosystem". The initiative will protect the company's core brand. Consumers will come to understand that Xerox owns and controls the space and what that implies.

A robust effort will also be made to prevent any unlawful activities, phishing, pharming, virus distribution, intolerance, defamation, spam, intellectual property infringement, fraud and so on. Providing a trusted experience is a primary consideration.

Xerox will also extend its existing privacy and confidentiality policies to the new brand extension.

One of the company's core values is to behave as a responsible corporate citizen.

Geographic Dot Brands

Xerox is committed to the initial reservation of country & territory names as described in the internationally recognized lists in Specification 5 attached to the New gTLD Applicant Guidebook.

Xerox is highly aware that national governments are very sensitive to the issue of protecting the integrity of geographical descriptors in the domain name system. Hence the Applicant will reserve from registration names on the ISO 3166-1 list, a UN Group of Experts technical manual on standardized geographic names and a related UN Working Group list.

As a major retailer operating in 160 different countries, geographic naming conventions are obviously of practical importance to Xerox. Company content can currently be accessed via the Xerox.com domain by using logical navigation. (The company mark is also registered in most country code domains such as xerox.de, xerox.eu and xerox.ca.)

It is important for Xerox that customers in all these countries are able to "quickly find local content and sales channels".

Under the dot com domain, the current naming convention assumes the following structure:

xerox.com/index/LLCC.html

Where LL = language and CC = country code

Given this geographic approach to finding Xerox content, and given that Xerox offers the ability to ship to 160 countries around the world, Xerox intends to explore the option of providing a hierarchical and intuitive framework for the .XEROX namespace by using geographical identifiers at the second level...

NOTE: second level = left of the dot.

Such use would be intuitive, it would make direct navigation simple and it would be compatible with ICANN's broad aim for the new gTLDs to be innovative. Xerox would seek to use geographical identifiers in a responsible and non-misleading manner.

The Applicant is interested in working with the GAC, various national governments and other dot brand operators on a plan to use country names in the .xerox string.

Possible .xerox Brand Domains

Technology.xerox
Products.xerox
Services.xerox
Printers.xerox
Copiers.xerox
DocumentManagement.xerox
BusinessProcess.xerox
ClaimsReimbursement.xerox
Publishing.xerox
Cloud.xerox
CustomerCare.xerox
HRservices.xerox
Search.xerox
Locations.xerox
Environment.xerox
Home.xerox
Newsroom.xerox
Support.xerox

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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