.travelguard Domain Information
Applicant Full Legal Name
American International Group, Inc.
Legal Establishment
Corporation
Applicant Address
80 Pine Street
30th Floor
New York New York 10005
US
State Jurisdiction
United States of America, Incorporation in Delaware
Applicant Website
http://www.aig.com
Applied for gTLD
TRAVELGUARD
Domain Registration Status
Closed
Mission/Purpose of Domain Extension
18.1 Mission and Purpose of .TRAVELGUARD Travel Guard operates as a part of Chartis Inc., a division of American International Group, Inc. ("AIG"), a leading international insurance and financial organization with approximately 63,000 employees serving customers in more than 130 countries. Travel... Read more
18.1 Mission and Purpose of .TRAVELGUARD
Travel Guard operates as a part of Chartis Inc., a division of American International Group, Inc. ("AIG"), a leading international insurance and financial organization with approximately 63,000 employees serving customers in more than 130 countries. Travel Guard content is accessible in the .COM gTLD, as well as a multitude of ccTLDs.
Through a unified corporate approach, AIG intends to submit three gTLD applications for the .AIG, .CHARTIS, and .TRAVELGUARD strings.
Travel Guard is a leading travel insurance plan provider with over 20 years of industry experience. Travel Guard specializes in providing innovative travel insurance, assistance, and emergency travel service plans for millions of travelers and thousands of companies throughout the world. Travel Guard's industry-leading, comprehensive travel insurance plans are distributed by more than 12,000 travel companies through virtually every distribution channel in the travel industry.
Travel Guard's comprehensive travel insurance programs include per-trip and annual plans, as well as coverage for trip cancellation, trip interruption, trip delay, medical expenses, baggage loss, and other travel-related issues. Travel Guard owns and operates its own network of assistance companies to ensure the highest quality in: Travel Medical Assistance, LiveTravel Emergency Service, Worldwide Travel Assistance, and Concierge and Personal Assistance.
The intended future mission and purpose of the .TRAVELGUARD gTLD is to serve as a trusted, hierarchical, and intuitive namespace provided by AIG and its qualified subsidiaries and affiliates for Travel Guard customers and interested parties.
AIG will be analyzing and evaluating other .BRAND gTLD applications as well as general market adoption to determine short- and long-term potential best-in-class use case options to most effectively serve and enhance AIG and Travel Guard's online strategy.
Although ICANN has not specifically recognized a .BRAND gTLD specification in the current version of the Applicant Guidebook, it is widely anticipated within the brand-owner community that this will become a specialty subset of gTLDs. The .TRAVELGUARD gTLD is intended to be one of those .BRAND gTLDs, with the goal of protecting Travel Guard's online presence and identity; expanding its marketing and promotion efforts; providing a secure channel for Travel Guard products and services; and offering a platform through which to consolidate many of the intellectual property activities of Travel Guard, Chartis, and AIG.
AIG intends to initially limit registration and use of domain names within the .TRAVELGUARD gTLD to AIG and its qualified subsidiaries and affiliates. This initial limited use will allow AIG to establish its operations and achieve full sustainability. This limited distribution, coupled with the other requirements set forth in Specification 9 of the template Registry Agreement, is intended to exempt AIG from its annual Code of Conduct Compliance requirements.
After Stage 3 (see below), AIG will evaluate whether opportunities exist to carry out the business strategy for the .TRAVELGUARD gTLD through expansion that continues the sustainable operations of the registry through fee-based registrations to parties other than AIG and its qualified subsidiaries and affiliates.
AIG currently plans a four-stage rollout for .TRAVELGUARD:
1. Stage 1
The initial stage of implementation of the gTLD will involve AIG registering a limited number of .TRAVELGUARD second-level domain names.
This initial use will provide AIG's IT and security personnel the time to run a number of tests to ensure seamless and secure access using the .TRAVELGUARD gTLD domain names, interoperability with various software and Web-based applications, and unbroken and secure use of all names. This initial allocation will also allow the appropriate AIG staff to coordinate with the internal and external staff responsible for the delegation and setup phases of the .TRAVELGUARD gTLD to ensure a proper transition from delegation to full operation.
2. Stage 2
Once all testing has been successfully completed, AIG will begin allocating domain names in .TRAVELGUARD for more widespread internal corporate use. During this same period of time, AIG will begin evaluating strategies to potentially migrate traffic away from its current patchwork network of second-level domain names, which are registered in a variety of TLDs, to its new gTLDs, .AIG, .CHARTIS, and .TRAVELGUARD.
It is in Stage 2 that AIG will evaluate expanding the operations of the gTLD to permit registration by other registrants such as qualified licensees or other strategic partners. Should an assessment of its expansion strategy lead to a decision to extend registration rights to other parties, this expansion is currently planned to take place during Stage 3, and likely after the first three years of operation. However, any expansion would be conditioned upon a review of Specification 9 (Registry Code of Conduct) set forth in the template Registry Agreement to ensure compliance with AIG's business model.
3. Stage 3
Depending upon the analysis of the evaluations undertaken in Stage 2, AIG may begin to implement the migration of Internet traffic away from the TLDs in which Travel Guard's domain names are currently registered, and toward the .AIG, .CHARTIS, and .TRAVELGUARD gTLDs. It is in this stage that AIG also may implement its decision to extend registration rights to licensees or strategic partners, depending upon compliance with Specification 9 as noted above. The dates of such expansion are subject to change depending upon business, strategic, and industry factors at the time.
After consideration of the following factors: analysis of AIG's existing domain name portfolio; internal analysis of marketing initiatives; and the fact that AIG will have full control over the number of registrations in the .TRAVELGUARD gTLD namespace, AIG is confident that the number of domain name registrations will be less than 10,000 in the first five years of operation.
4. Stage 4
Based on its experience with any expansion implemented in Stage 3, AIG will assess whether its business plan and expansion strategy should be augmented by extending registration rights to a broader class of registrants, including potential employees and customers of Travel Guard. It is anticipated by AIG that changes to the domain name industry, and particularly the impact of .BRAND gTLDs, will take at least five years to be realized and assessed. Any decision to expand the gTLDs beyond corporate, qualified subsidiary and affiliate, and licensee and partner use will take into account this experience as well as the technical analysis of potential expansion.
The potential use of the .TRAVELGUARD gTLD by these or other business segments will also be driven by Travel Guard and AIG's future business strategies as identified in AIG's annual report and investor filings, see http://www.aigcorporate.com/investors/annualreports_proxy.html.
Utilizing current projections based upon AIG and Travel Guard's existing businesses, future business plans, current domain name portfolio, and other strategic factors, AIG estimates second-level domain name registrations to be in line with the projections set forth in the financial template provided in the answer to Question 46 of this application.×
Travel Guard operates as a part of Chartis Inc., a division of American International Group, Inc. ("AIG"), a leading international insurance and financial organization with approximately 63,000 employees serving customers in more than 130 countries. Travel Guard content is accessible in the .COM gTLD, as well as a multitude of ccTLDs.
Through a unified corporate approach, AIG intends to submit three gTLD applications for the .AIG, .CHARTIS, and .TRAVELGUARD strings.
Travel Guard is a leading travel insurance plan provider with over 20 years of industry experience. Travel Guard specializes in providing innovative travel insurance, assistance, and emergency travel service plans for millions of travelers and thousands of companies throughout the world. Travel Guard's industry-leading, comprehensive travel insurance plans are distributed by more than 12,000 travel companies through virtually every distribution channel in the travel industry.
Travel Guard's comprehensive travel insurance programs include per-trip and annual plans, as well as coverage for trip cancellation, trip interruption, trip delay, medical expenses, baggage loss, and other travel-related issues. Travel Guard owns and operates its own network of assistance companies to ensure the highest quality in: Travel Medical Assistance, LiveTravel Emergency Service, Worldwide Travel Assistance, and Concierge and Personal Assistance.
The intended future mission and purpose of the .TRAVELGUARD gTLD is to serve as a trusted, hierarchical, and intuitive namespace provided by AIG and its qualified subsidiaries and affiliates for Travel Guard customers and interested parties.
AIG will be analyzing and evaluating other .BRAND gTLD applications as well as general market adoption to determine short- and long-term potential best-in-class use case options to most effectively serve and enhance AIG and Travel Guard's online strategy.
Although ICANN has not specifically recognized a .BRAND gTLD specification in the current version of the Applicant Guidebook, it is widely anticipated within the brand-owner community that this will become a specialty subset of gTLDs. The .TRAVELGUARD gTLD is intended to be one of those .BRAND gTLDs, with the goal of protecting Travel Guard's online presence and identity; expanding its marketing and promotion efforts; providing a secure channel for Travel Guard products and services; and offering a platform through which to consolidate many of the intellectual property activities of Travel Guard, Chartis, and AIG.
AIG intends to initially limit registration and use of domain names within the .TRAVELGUARD gTLD to AIG and its qualified subsidiaries and affiliates. This initial limited use will allow AIG to establish its operations and achieve full sustainability. This limited distribution, coupled with the other requirements set forth in Specification 9 of the template Registry Agreement, is intended to exempt AIG from its annual Code of Conduct Compliance requirements.
After Stage 3 (see below), AIG will evaluate whether opportunities exist to carry out the business strategy for the .TRAVELGUARD gTLD through expansion that continues the sustainable operations of the registry through fee-based registrations to parties other than AIG and its qualified subsidiaries and affiliates.
AIG currently plans a four-stage rollout for .TRAVELGUARD:
1. Stage 1
The initial stage of implementation of the gTLD will involve AIG registering a limited number of .TRAVELGUARD second-level domain names.
This initial use will provide AIG's IT and security personnel the time to run a number of tests to ensure seamless and secure access using the .TRAVELGUARD gTLD domain names, interoperability with various software and Web-based applications, and unbroken and secure use of all names. This initial allocation will also allow the appropriate AIG staff to coordinate with the internal and external staff responsible for the delegation and setup phases of the .TRAVELGUARD gTLD to ensure a proper transition from delegation to full operation.
2. Stage 2
Once all testing has been successfully completed, AIG will begin allocating domain names in .TRAVELGUARD for more widespread internal corporate use. During this same period of time, AIG will begin evaluating strategies to potentially migrate traffic away from its current patchwork network of second-level domain names, which are registered in a variety of TLDs, to its new gTLDs, .AIG, .CHARTIS, and .TRAVELGUARD.
It is in Stage 2 that AIG will evaluate expanding the operations of the gTLD to permit registration by other registrants such as qualified licensees or other strategic partners. Should an assessment of its expansion strategy lead to a decision to extend registration rights to other parties, this expansion is currently planned to take place during Stage 3, and likely after the first three years of operation. However, any expansion would be conditioned upon a review of Specification 9 (Registry Code of Conduct) set forth in the template Registry Agreement to ensure compliance with AIG's business model.
3. Stage 3
Depending upon the analysis of the evaluations undertaken in Stage 2, AIG may begin to implement the migration of Internet traffic away from the TLDs in which Travel Guard's domain names are currently registered, and toward the .AIG, .CHARTIS, and .TRAVELGUARD gTLDs. It is in this stage that AIG also may implement its decision to extend registration rights to licensees or strategic partners, depending upon compliance with Specification 9 as noted above. The dates of such expansion are subject to change depending upon business, strategic, and industry factors at the time.
After consideration of the following factors: analysis of AIG's existing domain name portfolio; internal analysis of marketing initiatives; and the fact that AIG will have full control over the number of registrations in the .TRAVELGUARD gTLD namespace, AIG is confident that the number of domain name registrations will be less than 10,000 in the first five years of operation.
4. Stage 4
Based on its experience with any expansion implemented in Stage 3, AIG will assess whether its business plan and expansion strategy should be augmented by extending registration rights to a broader class of registrants, including potential employees and customers of Travel Guard. It is anticipated by AIG that changes to the domain name industry, and particularly the impact of .BRAND gTLDs, will take at least five years to be realized and assessed. Any decision to expand the gTLDs beyond corporate, qualified subsidiary and affiliate, and licensee and partner use will take into account this experience as well as the technical analysis of potential expansion.
The potential use of the .TRAVELGUARD gTLD by these or other business segments will also be driven by Travel Guard and AIG's future business strategies as identified in AIG's annual report and investor filings, see http://www.aigcorporate.com/investors/annualreports_proxy.html.
Utilizing current projections based upon AIG and Travel Guard's existing businesses, future business plans, current domain name portfolio, and other strategic factors, AIG estimates second-level domain name registrations to be in line with the projections set forth in the financial template provided in the answer to Question 46 of this application.×