.obi Domain Information

Applicant Full Legal Name

OBI Group Holding GmbH

Legal Establishment

corporation

Applicant Address

Albert-Einstein-Strasse 7-9
Wermelskirchen 42929
DE

State Jurisdiction

Germany, GmbHG

Applicant Website

http://www.obi.de

Applied for gTLD

OBI

Domain Registration Status

Closed

Mission/Purpose of Domain Extension

OBI is one of the leading brands in the worldwide DIY („Do it yourself") market. Measured by the annual turnover, OBI is the seventh most profitable DIY-company in the world. In Europe, OBI has the third largest turnover and in Germany OBI is the undisputed No. 1. The OBI Group has 143... Read more

OBI is one of the leading brands in the worldwide DIY („Do it yourself") market. Measured by the annual turnover, OBI is the seventh most profitable DIY-company in the world. In Europe, OBI has the third largest turnover and in Germany OBI is the undisputed No. 1.
The OBI Group has 143 affiliated companies. Today, OBI operates 579 stores throughout Europe with more than 40.500 employees. Besides the German home market with actually 343 stores, OBI is also present in Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Ukraine and intends to expand to more countries.
The mission of the proposed „.obi" gTLD is to serve as an exclusive namespace for the OBI brand. Only OBI shall be eligible to register Second Level Domains in the „.obi" namespace. A right to use registered domain names will be granted to group companies, franchise partners and possibly a limited number of contractors subject to policies and conditions set up by OBI.

The proposed gTLD „.obi" shall serve multiple purposes:

1. The proposed „.obi" gTLD will make it easier for users to find information about OBI markets.
2. The proposed „.obi" gTLD will make it easier for users to find information about products or product categories.
3. The proposed „.obi" gTLD will make it easier for users to find corporate information.
4. The proposed „.obi" gTLD will help forge consumer trust in e-commerce.
5. The proposed „.obi" gTLD will open opportunities for OBI to establish new innovative business models.
6. The proposed „.obi" gTLD will help avoid fragmentation of the company-wide use of domain names at the global level.
7. The proposed „.obi" gTLD will help the company to improve its international unique and unified appearance.
8. The proposed „.obi" gTLD will facilitate OBI's digital brand management at the international level.
9. The „.obi" namespace will provide for a safer and more secure surfing experience.
10. The proposed „.obi" gTLD shall reduce the risk of users being deceived by offers or information allegedly originating from OBI and therefore mitigate the risk of users becoming victims of abusive behaviour and malicious conducts.

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Not only will OBI promote the new TLD as such, but also the structure and syntax of the namespace and how it is used. This will help users to intuitively find information and products they are looking for.
According to current plans, there will be different categories of domain names that will consistently be used. The following non-exhaustive list of such categories, which may be subject to change, gives examples of use cases of the „.obi" domain names.

- country.obi, such as germany.obi, austria.obi or hungary.obi and city.obi, such as munich.obi, vienna.obi (subject to the respective procedures for geographic names)
- market.obi, such as koeln-marsdorf.obi
- productcategory.obi, such as tools.obi, wallpaper.obi
- product.obi, such as screwdriver.obi, socket.obi or mowing-machine.obi
- name-of-manufacturer-or-brand.obi, such as lux-tools.obi or montana.obi
- campaign-or-special-offer.obi, such as giftcard.obi, top-customer-card.obi or spring-competition.obi
- special service performance, such as services.obi or rental-equipment.obi
- corporate.obi, such as jobs.obi or marketing.obi
- group consolidated legal entities and franchisees, such as obigroupholding.obi

Registrations and use of domain names, in particular with geographic names, are subject to the respective policies applicable for the „.obi" gTLD.
Such approach of structuring information provided by OBI may also support accessing and finding information by means of search engines.

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OBI will implement a consistent program to establish and forge consumer trust for the whole namespace, e.g. by means of certificates, payment methods or quality seals.

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OBI believes that new and innovative business models using the DNS can and will be rolled out in the near and mid-term future. OBI therefore wishes to be prepared in terms of the technical infrastructure should OBI choose to introduce such services.

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According to OBI's plans, the company group will expand to new markets and intensify its presence in existing markets. As a consequence, there is no certainty whatsoever, that domain names are available for registration to ensure a unified and consistent domain use in the respective gTLD and ccTLD namespaces. The exclusive „.obi" TLD enables OBI to establish and maintain a domain name portfolio that is consistent, under OBI's sole control and deployable at the global level.

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OBI will use a policy framework providing including content restrictions to make the „.obi" zone a familiy-friendly service. Additionally, there are contractual requirements and sanctions for the promotion of domain names and content or services offered thereunder. OBI deploys the Registry Service Provider's malware scan for the whole namespace as an additional means to mitigate the risk of e.g. servers being intruded and misused for the dissemination of malicious code.

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OBI will communicate to its target group that information from the company can actually be found in the OBI namespace. By doing so, the user is educated that other domain names may not be operated by OBI or its contractors.
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