dotLaw has reviewed the ICANN staff evaluations. After discussions with ICANN
staff and other members, we were informed that the only mechanism to respond to these
evaluations is this public comment forum. We respectively request ICANN and
the ICANN Board consider this response in their review of our application as several
of the points made by the staff require clarification and because it appears that
elements of our application with exhibits were not reviewed as part of this process.
Additionally, the application process is not a static process. Since the
filing of our application, we have continued to work on forming additional strategic
alliances with sponsoring organizations by responding through active dialogue with
individuals posting public comments, responding to organizations wanting more information
on the domain, and enhancing our domain structure based on suggestions from potential
users and market awareness and acceptance.
It is unclear to us whether the "staff
evaluations" have created an official or unofficial "short list" and whether the
Board will not consider any application currently excluded from the "short list."
We would like to state our objection to such a process if it is, in fact, reality.
We understood from ICANN that the application process would include an opportunity
to respond to questions and that we would be granted an interview with the ICANN
Board to discuss the application. Neither of these things has happened. We
have expended more than $100,000 and in excess of 1,000 man-hours to produce this
application in the good faith belief that all applications would be considered on
a level playing field and with adequate opportunity to present our case fully.
dotLaw believes that ICANN is as concerned as we are with equal and appropriate due
process. We will now focus on substantive points that are essential to the
content of our application.
Overview
dotLaw has received over 160 primary comments
with approximately 30 responses on our section of the ICANN public comments forum.
These comments have been overwhelmingly positive. There is clearly substantial interest
in a managed sponsored Top Level Domain for the legal community, supported by the
fact that dotLaw received the second most number of primary comments on the ICANN
public forum section. Attached as Exhibit A is a sample of the more substantive
comments. These comments come from a broad range of the potential users of
the legal community. We encourage all interested parties to view all of the
comments received to date.
ICANN requested proposals that were creative
and would lead to effective "proof of concept" top level domains. The staff
evaluators seem to have judged our application using criteria more appropriate for
selecting an unrestricted registry. dotLaw focused on the development of a
new and unique domain, not the creation of another ".com" registry.
In contrast,
our focus was on meeting the requirements of a new restricted, sponsored domain.
Our application addresses the significant issues that are required to be the sponsoring
organization and must be viewed from a different perspective.
dotLaw is proposing
much more than a mere registry for domain names. We seek to create a domain
structured to serve the needs of the international legal community by seeking and
involving the legal community in the policy formulation process and domain name structuring.
The legal community is clearly responding favorably to our plans. Examples
of our continued efforts to enhance our application include but are not limited to
the following:
· We are engaged in ongoing discussions with the American Bar Association
and have presented the ABA with a proposal outlining its participation on our domain
advisory board;
Note: The ABA, like ICANN, is about due process, therefore our
proposal must be reviewed by the various appropriate boards within the ABA.
We do not expect any public comment on this proposal before December.
· dotLaw
has solicited many state and select local bar associations for input on the process
and potential involvement with domain policy formulation;
· We have established
a web site for the community to review a summary of our plans for the domain.
The site includes a prototype web page available for purchasers of the domain names;
· dotLaw
has received the second highest number of public comments of any application and
have responded to some of those who have made comments;
· We have established
an interim advisory board of attorneys to provide input on the domain structure;
and
· Interviewed by the National Law Journal.
We would now like to address
some of the specific issues from the ICANN staff evaluation.
Technical Assessment
First
and foremost there was an objection to our use of dotMD as our initial registry operator.
The objection relates to experience with a registry of a larger scale and specific
technical architecture issues. We selected dotMD as our technical consultant
and registry for the first year of operations because they were, and still are, the
only registry that is focused on and serving a professional domain with a sponsored/restricted
domain model. dotMD has been successful, and we continue to believe that dotMD
is a valuable technical assistance partner.
While we believe that dotMD
can handle all of the dotLaw registry requirements, to address ICANN's staff's concern
as to whether dotMD has adequate scalability to support dotLaw and the appropriate
registry experience, we have initiated detailed discussions with one of the premier
registry organization to provide registry services to dotLaw. This premier
registry organization is an ICANN accredited registrar and should provide adequate
scalability to satisfy the ICANN staff. We hope to announce the specifics of
this arrangement in very short order. dotMD will continue to assist dotLaw
with technical consulting and domain structure support.
In addition, our
other partner, the Financial Advisory Services group of PricewaterhouseCoopers ("FAS-PwC")
has global technology teams experienced with top level domains, web site design,
scaleable Internet infrastructure implementation / practical knowledge (based on
existing global infrastructures) that will clearly address any experience issues
coupled with a premier registry organization. Notably, there is no recognition
by the ICANN staff in their comments that FAS-PwC is providing strategic, financial
and technical assistance to dotLaw.
Business / Financial Assessment
As to our
business assessment, it appears the review team found dotLaw, Inc. lacking in two
areas, our marketing plan and our pro forma financial projections.
Marketing
The
marketing plans of other applicants primarily focus on an advertising program that
strives for volumes to a large diverse commercial public. Our program focuses not
on volume, but rather on building a professional domain in such a way as to
be useful and productive to the international legal community. Other applicants
are only focused on registering large volumes of names. In contrast, dotLaw will
register names as well as manage an entirely new professional domain guided by domain
policies outlined later in this document. A sponsored restricted domain is not marketed
the same way as a general commercial domain.
We respectfully disagree with
the assessment that our marketing program is "weak". We point to the number
of supportive public comments that were posted on our application as evidence of
our ability to market the .law domain effectively. In addition, as stated in
our "Fiscal Information" exhibit to our original application, the dotLaw marketing
and branding expenditure in the first year of operations is expected to be $4 million.
We anticipate this expenditure to increase in the subsequent years.
Currently the
domain name registrations are anticipated to continue to increase dramatically over
the next several years. Our research indicates the legal community is consistently
building a strong on-line presence. According to Network Solutions-dotcom.com,
attorneys were the second largest industry registering web addresses in 1998, in
1999 attorneys were the top business and in 2000 they are projected to be second.
The only industry group that registered more web addresses was internet services.
Furthermore, we have had numerous discussions with lawyers, law firms, and law
consultants and bar associations on how to roll out dotLaw. As stated in our
application (page 6 of "Registry Operator's Proposal"), dotLaw will go on an aggressive
campaign to brand the product through the following:
Marketing Plan
The key to
leasing names in the dotLaw domain will be to stimulate demand for the domain names
by: 1) branding the domain in relevant media, 2) offering simple, valuable, bundled
services, and 3) developing a legal MetaDirectory of services supporting the profession
to drive traffic to and from the domain:
Target Users of the Domain
§ Attorneys/other
legal professionals
§ Legal community vendors
§ Law schools and students
§ Legal
aid providers and foundations
§ Consumers
The value for attorneys is to have
a powerful presence in the only law domain on the web, which should increase qualified
client referrals.
The value for legal vendors, whether a bar association or a for-profit
company, is to have a presence in the only law domain on the web and an opportunity
to effectively market and interact with legal professionals and consumers.
The
value for consumers is intuitive keyword access or single point of access to legal
information and services. Search technology through domain level indexing instead
of conventional search engines will make the information relevant to their geographic
location, or to any location they enter. We also intend to reserve several
generic terms (i.e. family law and corporate law, etc…) to facilitate efficient domain
level indexing and ensure that such generic labels are available to all individuals
and entities using the dotLaw domain.
Branding
dotLaw will be simply but powerfully
branded using a stylized version of the actual domain name (.law), with an emphasis
on the dot. The dot will be shown larger than normal, will have contoured characteristics,
and the dot graphic will contain the text "dot" to clearly show our audience how
to pronounce the name. The overall brand experience will communicate relevance, extensive
knowledge, intuitiveness, and comprehensiveness.
This branding will be reflected
within professional and consumer aspects of the dotLaw domain. All sites within the
dotLaw domain will prominently display our brand and be linked back to the MetaDirectory.
Marketing
Plan
dotLaw has several major target markets: the legal community, the legal services
and consumer.
The marketing plan will have several major components.
· A national
marketing and branding campaign to establish awareness of the brand for consumers,
the legal community, and the Internet community.
· Specific marketing to the
legal community.
· Marketing by demographic metropolitan areas, to get a high
level of saturation in a contained geographic market. This marketing strategy recognizes
that law is a local business, and local phenomenon. dotLaw plans to capitalize on
that by marketing in a DMA and creating a local demand for the .law domain services.
· As this program becomes successful, more demographic metropolitan areas will
be added to build out the brand.
· Direct marketing to the attorney will be through
legal societies, professional publications, professional meetings, Internet, and
direct mail.
· Specific marketing to the consumer.
· Mixed media campaign
on a national level. Public relations placement of materials as news items and magazine
focus.
dotLaw will establish widespread awareness. We will encourage exploration
and adoption through marketing communications directed to its primary constituencies.
(See Media Campaign below)
The campaign will offer a powerfully simple, straightforward,
honest, neutral, and effective solution to address the major concerns associated
with today's crowded and confusing landscape of legal web sites.
A) Media
Campaign. dotLaw will benefit from a powerful branding campaign directed to the following
markets:
1. Attorneys
2. Bar associations
3. Law Schools and students
4. Legal
service vendors
5. Consumers of legal services
The media mix is
expected to consist of the following:
· Print, including selected consumer magazines
and legal journals as well as business vehicles such as the Wall Street Journal to
reach the investor community;
· Web marketing, including sponsorships, messaging
opportunities, targeted e-mail, affiliate agreements, etc;
· Spot television in
selected major markets.
· Direct print mail to selected legal industry organizations;
· Electronic
billboards.
B) PR Campaign. The PR campaign will support the positioning
and awareness objectives as follows:
· Placement of feature stories
· Orchestrated
"drum beat" of news releases designed to emphasize the perception of momentum.
Distribution
and Sponsorships
dotLaw, Inc., will offer direct and indirect marketing of domain
names. We will market domain names directly to: attorneys (including group practices),
other legal professionals, support service providers and other law related organizations.
Additionally, we will develop distribution relationships with legal societies and
law related companies allowing them to provide domain names to their members.
dotLaw,
Inc. will offer legal service companies the opportunity to market their products
and services within the dotLaw MetaDirectory. A sponsorship could include placement
on the home page and/or navigational pages and dynamically generated sponsorships
driven by consumer legal search requests.
Furthermore, the dotLaw marketing plan
was received favorably by the Harvard law students who reviewed the new TLD applications
for The Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Under completeness, dotLaw received
the highest mark and they favorably state, "3: Specific marketing plan; business
plan; guidelines for content established".
Pro formas
The staff evaluations correctly
state that we pulled our proformas. However, the reviewers fail to state
that we submitted an enhanced replacement document, which fully outlines our financial
position. This document was prepared after discussions with ICANN staff.
It appears to us that the review teams may not have seen this replacement document.
This replacement document outlines the fact that FAS-PwC is involved with dotLaw
and is willing and able to provide full financial backing and support.
As stated
in our "dotLaw, Inc. Fiscal Information":
dotLaw, Inc. has also entered into an
agreement with the Financial Advisory Services business of PricewaterhouseCoopers
LLP ("PwC-FAS") to be the financial and strategic advisor to dotLaw and as an investor
in dotLaw, Inc. PwC-FAS has substantial experience in the development of internet
based businesses, the management and security of digital data accessible through
the internet and in marketing concepts and brand enhancement. PWC-FAS is one
of the largest professional services consulting firms in the world with nearly 2,600
professional employees and annual revenues in excess of $700 million. FAS-PWC will
support and fund all development stage activity through award of the domain name.
We
will also point out that we have all the necessary funding capabilities through FAS-PwC
and/or outside venture groups to completely fund our projected initial start-up of
$10 to 15 million. If you carefully analyze the size and capitalization of
both applicants accepted and rejected, our partners are significantly larger and
do not have a funding problem.
Our documents also reveal financial details
about first through third year estimated revenues of $900,000, $7,000,000 and
$22,000,000 respectively. We estimate corresponding expenses to be $8,250,000
in the first year, $10,250,000 in the second year, and the third year expenses are
expected to increase with inflation and domain name growth needs.
A separate posting
will follow that describes the strengths of our
application with respect to the
"August 15th Criteria".
Conclusion
We respectively ask the ICANN Board to review
our application and the amendments provided in this document. We do not agree with
the conclusions of the staff evaluations and believe our application merits further
review. We believe our proposal provides an opportunity for ICANN to
award a truly unique sponsored and restricted domain that meets all of the August
15 criteria.
We have addressed the issues raised by the staff as discussed above
by:
· Entering into an arrangement with a major ICANN approved registry;
· Highlighting
proposed marketing program for the domain;
· Presenting financial information
that demonstrates our financial capabilities
dotLaw creates the opportunity for
ICANN to award a restricted and sponsored domain. Our concept has strength,
as the staff evaluators agreed, in that it is targeted and focused at one definable
community. The community is large enough to test the professional space, but
yet very manageable in size. The community has clearly spoken that it is interested
in the concept from our comments and from research on growth of legal registrations
in the .com domain. The fact that the community already has a very defined
and functioning professional bar association network and requirements for licensing
(in most countries) provides a solid basis for the formation of a domain advisory
board. This concept is valid and meets one of the objectives of ICANN to have
a restricted space with a sponsoring organization.
Esther Dyson stated that "the
internet needs to evolve, grow and change". We agree.
Respectfully submitted,
dotLaw,
Inc.