.health Pre-Register Domain - .health Domain Information

"Health" is the general condition of the body or mind with reference to soundness and vigor. As a global society, health is a measure of soundness of body, mind or being. Health can mean freedom from disease or ailment. Virtually everywhere in the world, and across many stakeholder segments, health is a major contributor to the economy and serves as a leading and influential indicator for measuring any one country or territory's economic and societal strengths and weaknesses against others. Throughout the world, people rate health one of their highest priorities and concerns. Whether these are mental, physical, economic or social, these concerns are commonly linked to education and literacy, food and nutrition, fitness and exercise, medicines and therapies, environment and nature, technology and innovation, insurance and employment, for professional research and others.

For over two decades, the Internet has empowered consumers to make informed health choices and decisions. Although major disparities in access to the Internet still exist in many areas of the developing world, over 14% of the global population uses the Internet at least weekly to find health information, and 20% of people regularly use online or mobile tools for managing or tracking their health (2011 Edelman Health Barometer). More than half of online health-related searches are aimed at acquiring knowledge, answers or information about specific diseases, conditions, medical treatments or procedures in support of a "self-diagnosis," or on behalf of others.

Physicians and healthcare professionals are also increasingly using the Internet for professional purposes. A Google 2009 Study revealed that in the U.S., 86% of physicians use Internet to access health information, 65% of primary care doctors search the Web more than once a day for professional purposes, 92% said they accessed it from their office, 21% said they did so with a patient in the examination room, and that 59% reported doing so from a mobile device. Manhattan Research reported in 2011 that 64% of European physicians prefer online sources versus traditional sources to obtain information about pharmaceutical products. In 2010, Frost & Sullivan reported that 75% health care professionals surveyed use social media for business purposes.

The Internet is playing an increasingly important role in strengthening healthcare systems, enabling connectivity between healthcare professionals, institutions and patients. In addition to empowering patients, the Internet is helping to reduce healthcare costs, such as unnecessary hospital emergency room visits. In Great Britain, for example, the National Health Service (NHS) uses the Internet to reduce the burden on general practitioners for common ailments - 60% of the more than 350,000 web inquiries every month are completed within the service and donʹt require any further attention.

Despite its major benefits and continued adoption, the Internet has also introduced a number of risks and challenges, often as a result of increasingly accessible access to misleading or fraudulent health information. For consumers, the consequences of taking action on inaccurate, false or misleading health information online can be quite serious, given its potential to cause harm, illness, injury and even loss of life.

Throughout the world, consumers consider academic medical centers and medical associations/societies as their most trusted sources of information (Source: Deloitte 2011 Global Consumer Health Study). Despite the increasingly availability of these online sources, currently, it is often difficult for online health consumers to easily distinguish safe and reliable information from inaccurate or fraudulent counterparts. According to the 2010 Bupa Health Pulse Study, very few consumers verify that the source of the data they find is credible. Even when the information "appears" to be credible, more often than not it cannot be trusted and poses significant threats and dangers to online health consumers. Scammers, for example increasingly abuse health-related domain names and keywords to lead online health seekers to counterfeit or dangerous sources, which also pose risks to rightsholders in the health supply chain.

At DotHealth, LLC, in recognition of these opportunities, challenges and risks, our mission is to establish .health as a safe, trustworthy and secure top-level domain for global health stakeholders. Our goals and objectives are to establish .health as the preferred online namespace for the trusted communication, dissemination, exchange and fulfillment of health-related information and resources. In support of the safety and protection of online health consumers and rightsholders, DotHealth has identified a series of policies, safeguards and standard operating procedures for the .health gTLD that collectively comprise our proposed registry services and procedural framework. This framework will be operated in enterprise collaboration with Neustar, Inc., the world's leading provider of essential clearinghouse services to the global communications and Internet industry.
DotHealth will leverage Neustar's unparalleled technical infrastructure and experience in operating the global registries for numerous top level domains, as well as its malicious monitoring service levels as further described throughout this application submission. We have also executed an exclusive agreement with LegitScript to provide enterprise fraud and abuse monitoring and intelligence services for the .health gTLD. LegitScript's continued cooperation with leading U.S. and international industry organizations, including the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, The International Pharmaceutical Federation, the US Food and Drug Administration, and the International Medical Product Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force will play an important role in the creation and ongoing enforcement of DotHealth policies and standards for registrant compliance. LegitScript's is the healthcare industry's leading provider of online fraud intelligence and monitoring services, and works with several of the world's most successful and recognized major e-commerce channels and search engines including Google, Amazon, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Additionally, LegitScript increasingly cooperates with major domain name registrars throughout the world, which will help DotHealth to execute on its goals and objectives for the .health TLD.

DotHealth's proposed policies and registry services have been developed with consensus and affirmations of support from numerous global and regional health sciences industry organizations including the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP), The Inter-American College of Physicians and Services (ICPS), The Association of Black Cardiologists and the World Federation of Chiropractic. Our continued cooperation these organizations and others will play an important and influential role in advocating and promoting widespread adoption and the meaningful uses of .health domain names.

As the ICANN new gTLD program is expected to result in the potential introduction of hundreds of new "vertically" oriented namespaces representing brands, special interest groups, geographies and others, we believe the .health gTLD provides for a meaningful opportunity to structure and distinguish a world of online health information and resources that all health stakeholders can trust.

At DotHealth, LLC ("DotHealth"), our goal is to make the Internet a safer, reliable and genuinely trustworthy resource for all stakeholders in health. We believe that the .health TLD will greatly enhance and improve the ways that health information and resources are discovered, accessed and utilized via the Internet.

To achieve these goals and objectives, DotHealth will adopt and enforce a series of registry policies, active safeguards and procedures, and work in cooperation with its partners, Neustar and LegitScript to formally distinguish the .health TLD as a "quality label" for health-related websites that adhere to a set of guidelines for safety, reliability and trust. Affirmations of support for these policies and procedures have been secured from numerous global and regional health and wellness industry associations and non-governmental organizations throughout the world. These include the Inter-American College of Physicians, National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP), the World Federation of Chiropractic, the Association of Black Cardiologists and the Regulatory Harmonization Institute.

We envision that .health will appeal to a large, broad, diverse and international addressable market of registrants spanning all major segments of the human health, personal care and animal health industries. DotHealth forecasts that the life sciences and consumer health product segments will comprise the largest segments of the addressable market for .health, as these segments are aggressively shifting their promotional and educational spending from traditional mediums (television, radio, print etc.) to digital channels, including the Internet and mobile devices. Digital resource allocation in support of these goals and campaigns has also shifted from traditional banner advertising toward the creation of "custom online health centers" devoted to a particular disease, condition, or health-related matter. In particular, we believe the pharmaceutical industry will find .health domain names as an attractive alternative to their existing .com or other TLD counterparts for distinguishing non-promotional product-related content or labeling information in order to comply with recently established or newly emerging FDA regulatory guidance for domain names and online resources. Because hundreds of major disease state or condition-related strings are unavailable for registration, the availability of these names in .health will also foster competition in the current domain name space and among those seeking to "own an online health category."

DotHealth also envisions that physicians, hospitals and other provider organizations throughout the world will value .health as a safe and reliable resource for communicating and exchanging information with patients and caregivers about their practice or services. In 2011, in the U.S., President Obama ratified the HITECH Act which will make it easier for doctors and other health care professionals to receive incentive payments for adopting and meaningfully using health information technology modules, including patient education web sites and portals which can leverage .health domain names in support of these interventions.
Because "health" can be associated beyond "wellness" or "disease," we believe that numerous other market segments and industries outside of the "health" industry will find .health to be an attractive domain name solution for positioning their organizations, products, programs and services. For example, restaurants, which offer "health-conscious" menu options, could utilize .health domain names for specifically marketing or promoting them to consumers. For those engaged in the medical tourism arena, travel and hospitality-related businesses (e.g., hotels or cruise ships) could utilize .health domain names to promote their locations on a "health-related" basis. Employers may wish to utilize .health names for their businesses in support of disseminating information about health insurance programs or services they make available to employees. Major technology companies which provide solutions and services to multiple industries might find .health useful for distinguishing their product/service information and resources that specifically cater to health or health stakeholders. For example, IBM could utilize IBM.health instead of http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/industries/healthcare/?cm_re=masthead-_-solutions-_-ind-health in this regard.

As previously stated above, our goal is to make the Internet a safer, reliable and genuinely trustworthy resource for all stakeholders in health. For the .health TLD, in order to enable a safe and reliable online experience for end-users, and in recognition of the challenges and risks that exist in the current online landscape for registrants and end-users, numerous policies, safeguards and standard operating procedures have been identified for the .health TLD which will be enforced and actively monitored for compliance by DotHealth in conjunction with Neustar and LegitScript. Online content on websites discoverable via general search engines is still the mainstay of the digital health landscape. For the average consumer, finding accurate and trustworthy health information can be difficult. When a trusted source isn't known, online health seekers become especially vulnerable to the dangers of inaccurate or misleading information when they take action with the information they find. Abusive practices and malicious behaviors including email spam, search-engine optimization, social network abuse, typo-squatting, and others are commonplace in online health, and virtually all rely on domain name resolution to direct recipients. These practices and behaviors are commonly classified as "false association," whereby the information that is discovered or accessed may appear recognizable or trustworthy, but the associated hyperlinks actually resolve to domain names and web sites that aren't authentic, safe or reliable. Whether accessed through direct navigation, through an organic search result, an e-mail message or otherwise, just clicking on the links themselves can be dangerous, particularly when a user is directed to a domain name that automatically installs malware or poses other threats to user privacy or security. While major search engines like Google now have strong governance in place to restrict rogue online pharmacies from placing paid search advertisements, these do not prevent or inhibit organic searches and email messages with links utilizing health-related keywords or brand names are increasingly at the center of click-fraud and scams that pose harm to health consumers and rightsholders alike. Recently, there has been a push for domain registrars to take a more active role in addressing these risks, although at DotHealth and for the .health gTLD, we intend to eradicate them in the interest of consumer safety and registrant protection at the Registry level. False association also poses various risks to rightsholders, which are of major concern to intellectual property stakeholders throughout the global health sciences industry. Online counterfeit drug sales and "rogue" sources utilize abusive domain name registrations, typo squatting and brand-jacking to exploit health-related trademarks at the expense of rightsholders. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry sectors rank among the highest of all domain name complainant activity, with over 8% of all cases reported in 2011.

With 173 million U.S. adults using the Internet for health, and 116 million online specifically for prescription drug or pharmaceutical company resources, our proposed approaches are fully justified and are at the center of DotHealth's plans and strategies for differentiating .health as a safer and more reliable namespace as compared to its other current and future TLD counterparts. In recognition of these challenges and risks, as the .health Registry Operator, we intend to expressly reserve the right to deny, cancel or transfer any registration that it deems necessary, in its discretion, to protect the integrity and stability of the registry. The DotHealth Registration and Acceptable Use policies we have developed will expressly prohibit the use of .health domain names to support of the illicit promotion or sale of prescription drugs, controlled substances, tainted dietary supplements, ingredients for psychoactive highs, and other substances or ingredients which are have been validated as safety concerns by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), The European Medicines Agency (EMEA) and/or other regional or international regulatory authorities or law enforcement agencies. Registrant compliance with the DotHealth Acceptable Use Policy will be vigilantly monitored and strictly enforced on a daily basis in conjunction with Neustar and LegitScript.

In the interest of protecting rightsholders and intellectual property stakeholders, as well as end-users, numerous operating procedures, safeguards and policies have been identified and orchestrated in conjunction with our proposed efforts to operate the .health TLD registry. These include an extended Sunrise phase as well ongoing cooperation with the newly formed Trademark Clearinghouse and registrars to provide notification services and alerts to ensure rightsholders can stopgap risks for abusive domain name registrations before they are enabled in the .health DNS zone.

To protect the privacy or confidential information of registrants and end-users, The .health TLD registry solution will leverage Neustar's architecture which includes multiple layers of security, diversified firewall and networking hardware vendors, multi-factor authentication for accessing registry systems, physical security access controls, a 24x7 manned Network Operations Center that monitors all systems and applications, and a 24x7 manned Security Operations Center that monitors and mitigates DDoS attacks.

Outreach and communications will play an important role in helping DotHealth to achieve our projected benefits. Stakeholders of all kinds - commercial, non-commercial, government organizations and others will need to be educated about the benefits of new gTLDs as they relate to their meaningful use interests, use cases and business models. To establish awareness and adoption of the .health TLD, we plan to utilize various types of health sciences and consumer media channels, events and conferences, and social networks to strategically and regularly deliver key messages regarding the value and benefits of .health, and to communicate our progress and growth. DotHealth also plans to feature a "Resource Center" on our Website for registrants to utilize in order to find an authorized .health registrar, to access our policies, as well as other recommended resources for launching and optimizing the discovery of .health domain names. The Resource Center will also feature examples of .health web sites as credible and trusted sources, identified across various categories in conjunction with accreditation programs that will be executed our industry partners and premium name customers.

At DotHealth, LLC ("DotHealth"), our mission is to establish .health as a safe, trustworthy and secure top-level domain for global health stakeholders. To ensure success, we have identified and orchestrated a policy framework and numerous safeguards that are designed to mitigate abusive registrations and malicious behaviors which may pose harm to registrants and consumers, or which may otherwise threaten the integrity and stability of the .health registry.

In support of rightsholders and intellectual property stakeholders, in conjunction with the Trademark Clearinghouse, DotHealth will provide a Sunrise Service and trademark notification services for the safeguarding of trademarks as part of its registry operations. The goal of DotHealthʹs sunrise period is to ensure that all rightsholders are able to successfully leverage the brand recognition and value established from their products or services in the context of new .health domain assignments, if they choose to do so. This approach is necessitated by the fact that the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry sectors rank among the highest of all domain name complainant activity.

In conjunction with Neustar and LegitScript, active fraud intelligence and surveillance for abusive behaviors in the .health TLD will be implemented as a matter of standard operating procedure and in order to mitigate the potential for .health domain names to be used for the illicit promotion or sale of prescription drugs at the expense of rightsholders. These safeguards will importantly ensure that DotHealth can proactively identify, detect, catalog, and disrupt any malicious activity within the .health TLD.

If warranted, DotHealth may take down any .health domains verified to be harboring and/or supporting online threats to the .health registry and the broader Internet community of users. This action shuts down all activities associated with the domain name, including all websites. Our philosophy in administering this procedure is that removing threats to the consumer outweighs any potential damage to the registrar/registrant relationship. DotHealth will commit to keeping its registrars updated of any malicious activity within the .health TLD through weekly or monthly reporting. We will also leverage our back-end provider's existing relationships with international law enforcement agencies as necessary and in support of these procedures.

Procedures for Resolving Multiple Requests for Top Level Names
Procedures for resolving requests and limiting unqualified registrations of trademarked names will be implemented in the Sunrise period and on an ongoing basis through notification services in conjunction with the Trademark Clearinghouse.

Other reserved names for which it is envisioned that multiple applications may be requested shall be sold in conjunction with third-party domain name auction services or brokers as authorized or organized by DotHealth at its own discretion. In support of our enterprise commitment to improving the quality of online health information, we also plan to administer a Request for Information (RFI) Process for select reserved .health names to ensure their trusted and meaningful use among registrants and end-users, and to help promote awareness, usage and uptake of the .health gTLD. All policies and procedures as described herein with respect to reserved names have been developed in accordance with the ICANN New gTLD Registry Agreement and specifically Provision 2.6 as it is currently published and available.

Registry Pricing Policies

Wholesale Price Stability
With respect to cost benefits for registrants, DotHealth intends to maintain its introductory wholesale pricing model for registrars for the first three (3) years of registry operations. By providing a predictable wholesale price, we believe this will simplify efforts among registrars to facilitate and achieve end-customer (registrant) adoption at levels that have been forecasted for the .health registry.

Price stability will be particularly meaningful to the health sciences rights-holder segmentation that we have identified for .health. As such, even as a matter of making "defensive registration decisions" we felt it would be important to provide some level of predictability for an initial three-year period, which would avoid concerns for pricing as a barrier to .health's early-stage market adoption. DotHealth anticipates coordinating pricing incentives for bulk registrations from those with larger numbers of names to register. Bulk registrations above a reasonable number of .health domain names from one registrant will be eligible for such discounting incentives through the coordination of our registrar network. Registrants will be offered the option to obtain initial domain name registrations for periods of one to ten years at the discretion of the registrar, but no greater than ten years.

Contractual Commitments
Pursuant to provision 2.10 as contained in the current ICANN New gTLD Registry Agreement, DotHealth will make several contractual commitments to registrants regarding the magnitude of price escalation. We will provide ICANN and each ICANN accredited registrar that has executed the registry-registrar agreement for the .health TLD advance written notice of any price increase of no less than thirty (30) calendar days. With respect to renewal of domain name registrations, DotHealth shall provide ICANN and each ICANN accredited registrar that has executed the registry-registrar agreement for the .health TLD advance written notice of any price increase, including as a result of the elimination of any refunds, rebates, discounts, product tying, Qualified Marketing Programs or other programs (which had the effect of reducing the price charged to registrars) of no less than one hundred eighty (180) calendar days.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, with respect to renewal of domain name registrations, DotHealth will provide at least thirty (30) calendar days notice of any price increase if the resulting price is less than or equal to (A) for the period beginning on the Effective Date and ending twelve (12) months following the Effective Date, the initial price charged for registrations in the .health TLD, or (B) for subsequent periods, a price for which DotHealth provided a notice within the twelve (12) month period preceding the effective date of the proposed price increase.

DotHealth shall offer registrars the option to obtain domain name registration renewals at the current price (i.e. the price in place prior to any noticed increase) for periods of one to ten years at the discretion of the registrar, but no greater than ten years. In addition, DotHealth will maintain uniform pricing for renewals of domain name registrations, for which the price for each domain registration renewal must be identical to the price of all other domain name registration renewals in place at the time of such renewal. Such price must take into account universal application of any refunds, rebates, discounts, product tying or other programs in place at the time of renewal.

DotHealth will make available to registrars Qualified Marketing Programs in which discounted renewal pricing will be offered for up to one hundred eighty (180) calendar days. All ICANN accredited registrars for the .health TLD will be provided the same opportunity to qualify for such discounted Renewal Pricing. These programs will not to exclude any particular class or classes of registrations or increase the renewal price of any particular classes of registrations.

For complete transparency, DotHealth will provide public query-based DNS lookup service for the TLD at its sole expense.

DotHealth, LLC (ʺDotHealthʺ) believes that in countries and territories throughout the world, health authorities will value the .health TLD as an appropriate resource that can be used to inform citizens and other stakeholders about public health policies and strategies.

In preparation for answering this question, DotHealthreviewed the following relevant background material regarding the protection of geographic names in the DNS, including:

-ICANN Board Resolution 01-92 regarding the methodology developed for the reservation and release of country names in the .INFO top-level domain (see http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/minutes-10sep01.htm);

-ICANN's Proposed Action Plan on .INFO Country Names (see http://www.icann.org/en/meetings/montevideo/action-plan-country-names-09oct01.htm);

-"Report of the Second WIPO Internet Domain Name Process: The Recognition and Rights and the Use of Names in the Internet Domain Name System,ʺ Section 6, Geographical Identifiers (see http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/processes/process2/report/html/report.html);

-ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) Principles Regarding New gTLDs, (see https://gacweb.icann.org/download/attachments/1540128/gTLD_principles_0.pdf?version=1&modificationDate=1312358178000); and

-ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Reserved Names Working Group - Final Report (see http://gnso.icann.org/issues/new-gtlds/final-report-rn-wg-23may07.htm).
Initial Reservation of Country and Territory Names

DotHealth is committed to initially reserving the country and territory names contained in the internationally recognized lists described in Article 5 of Specification 5 attached to the New gTLD Applicant Guidebook at the second level and at all other levels within the .health gTLD at which domain name registrations will be provided. Specifically, DotHealth will reserve:

-The short form (in English) of all country and territory names contained on the ISO 3166- 1 list, as updated from time to time, including the European Union, which is exceptionally reserved on the ISO 3166-1 list, and its scope extended in August 1999 to any application needing to represent the name European Union (see http://www.iso.org/iso/support/country_codes/iso_3166_code_lists/iso-3166-1_decoding_table.htm#EU);
-The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names, Technical Reference Manual for the Standardization of Geographical Names, Part III Names of Countries of the World; and
-The list of United Nations member states in six official United Nations languages prepared by the Working Group on Country Names of the United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names.
Potential Allocation and Future Release of Names

During its Sunrise period, DotHealth will implement an outreach campaign targeting senior leadership representing health ministries and/or government agencies in each Country or Territory to inform them about .health and to facilitate the responsible release of names as previously described. Ministers of Health as identified and verified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will be established as the primary point of contact for each Country or Territory. For reference, these can be accessed at the FDA's web site featuring International Organizations and Foreign Government Agencies at http://www.fda.gov/InternationalPrograms/Agreements/ucm131179.htm.

While DotHealth foresees no immediate need for plans to make use of these initially reserved country names at the second level within the .health namespace, DotHealth recognizes that there has been several successful and non-misleading use of country names by new gTLD operators as evidenced below:

〈AUSTRALIA.COOP〉 - Is operated by Co-operatives Australia the national body for State Co-operative Federations and provides a valuable resource about cooperatives within Australia.

〈UK.COOP〉 - Is operated by Co-operatives UK the national trade body that campaigns for co-operation and works to promote, develop and unite co-operative enterprises within the United Kingdom.

〈NZ.COOP〉 - Is operated by the New Zealand Cooperatives Association which brings together the country's cooperative mutual business in a not-for-profit incorporated society.

〈USA.JOBS〉 - Is operated by DirectEmployers Association (DE). While Employ Media the registry operator of the .JOBS gTLD is currently in a dispute with ICANN regarding the allocation of this and other domain names. Direct Employers has a series of partnerships and programs with the United States Department of Labor, the National Association of State Workforce Agencies and Facebook to help unemployed workers find jobs.

〈MALDIVIAN.AERO〉 - Is the dominant domestic air carrier in Maldives, and provides a range of commercial and leisure air transport services.
The more likely request by DotHealth will come in connection with the un-reservation and allocation of two-letter .health domain names, e.g. 95.health, 12.health, etc. If DotHealth should decide in the future to attempt and allocate these domain names, it would submit the proper Registry Service Evaluation Processes (RSEP) with ICANN. In evaluating similar RSEP requests that have been submitted to ICANN by other gTLD registry operators, DotHealth believes that its request would be favorably granted.

Creation and Updating the Policies
DotHealth is committed to continually reviewing and updating when necessary its policies in this area. Consistent with this commitment, DotHealth intends to remain an active participant in any ongoing ICANN policy discussion regarding the protection of geographic names within the DNS.