List of Content
a- Overall mission and purpose
b- Target group
c- Beneficiaries
d- Forecasted demand
e- Beyond mission and purpose
a- Overall mission and purpose
The mission of the proposed gTLD .med is to provide a safe and secure, self-containing namespace for the medical community and thus addressing the interests of skilled, trustworthy, and verified members of the medical professions. Ordinary people seeking information regarding medical and healthcare topics will benefit from .med-websites as reliable sources of information.
From this mission statement to different groups can be deduced. On the one hand individuals and organizations from the medical professions being considered as potential registrants. This group is labeled “target group”. On the other hand is the group called “beneficiaries”, representing the audience of users that is appealed to such a new gTLD. Both groups are delineated as follows.
b- Target group
As described in the overall mission the target group that we are aiming to engage with consists of skilled, trustworthy and verified members of the medical professions. Skilled and trustworthy in this context means that an individual qualifies as a member of the target group only when it can provide proof of formal or long-standing training and⁄or experience in any field of medicine. This field can be human medicine as well as veterinary medicine and can be related to academic or alternative medicine. Verified means that the individual has delivered such proof and that the proof has been accepted as sufficient.
Only after successful verification an individual will be considered a member of the medical community and will be granted access to the registration of a domain under the new gTLD .med.
The typical professions and organizations that fall into the target group are listed in the following six groups:
1- Medical
Physician, Dentist, Ergo therapist, Hospital, Doctor´s office, Psychologist, Psychotherapist, Physiotherapist, Optician ⁄ Optometrist, Dietician, Speech therapist, Chiropractic, Orthotics, Podiatrist, Psychomotor therapist, Hearing aid acoustician, Veterinary, Toxicologist, Other medical professions
2- Scientific-Technical
Biologist, Biochemist, Chemist, Laboratories, Medical physicist, Medical laboratory scientist (MLS) , Physical scientist, Medical information scientist, Medical laboratory scientist radiology, Technician, Dental technician ⁄ Mechanic, Pharmaceutical technician, Radiology assistant, Biological ⁄ Chemical technical assistant, Pharmaceutical-technical assistant, Medical laboratory assistant, Psychological technical assistant, Dental assistant, Surgical technician assistant, Veterinaryʹs assistant, Pharmaceutical Assistant
3- Nursing ⁄ Assisting
Midwife, Nurse anaesthetist, Geriatric nurse, Hospital nurse, Surgical nurse, Childrenʹs nurse, Psychiatric nurse ⁄ Mental health nurse, Nurse anaesthetist, Nursing scientist, Nursing and care management with diploma, Nurse without degree, Nursing Home Manager, Orderly ⁄ Ward assistant ⁄ Nurse assistant, Dental hygienist, Diabetes advisor, Medical technician, Emergency medical technician intermediate (EMT-I) , Emergency medical technician (EMT), Nursing homes, Hospice
4- Pharmacy
Pharmacist, Pharmacy, Pharmacy technician, Pharmacy engineer, Medical dealer, Druggist (CH)
5- Collegiate
Student of animal health, Student of pharmacy, Student of human medicine, Student of dentistry, Intern pharmacist, Scholar, University, Medical education facility
6- Business⁄Publishing
Health official, Health economist, Business⁄ Management⁄ Economy, Management consultant, Medical advertising agency employee, Publishing Company Employee, Insurance Company Employee, Pharmaceutical industry employee, Pharmaceutical-Commercial employee, Industry employee, Journalist, Librarian, Medical journalist, Medical Photographer ⁄ Designer, Medical documentarist, Doctorʹs Receptionist⁄ Assistant, Pharmaceutical companies, Pharmaceutical whole seller, Governmental organizations, Non-Governmental organizations
When considering the target group, different use cases are possible. There could be an internist who registers a domain for his doctor’s office addressed to the public to inform about his services. Or there could be a pharmaceutical company that publishes additional information about its drugs to medical professionals and⁄or the public. Another use case is a closed discussion forum established by a healthcare professional under a .med-domain, addressing medical and healthcare topics – open or not open for public presentation on the internet. Then there could be a whole scientific community consisting of research networks, publication databases and representative space all around a verified medical namespace. As an eLearning platform for medical students is already part of our service proposition today, future members of the professional medical community, namely university students, could establish websites under .med-Domains to provide learning support to each other or to rate and rank medical education facilities.
In each use case the gTLD .med would significantly add to the reputation of a website as a medical website. Orientation for healthcare professionals and the general public on the internet would be much improved.
c- Beneficiaries
Apart from the community members, all other internet users are considered a relevant audience benefiting from the new gTLD .med as well. This is because at one point or another, every human being will be concerned with medical and healthcare topics - personally or through relatives and friends. Although one is typically not constantly concerned with medical topics, a source of information becomes even more valuable in case of sickness or an emergency if it can be trusted. That is why the gTLD .med aims at increasing the trustworthiness of the medical content on the internet. The gTLD .med will so add relevant value for people interested in before-mentioned topics, i.e. current patients, people with temporary illnesses, people with chronic diseases, professionals and family caretakers.
Again, different use cases are conceivable. The first use case is the classic case of an ordinary internet user seeking information on a medical topic. Typically the person will make use of search engines, such as google or bing. The search results are usually shown including the full URL of each result. A result with a .med TLD will indicate to the user that this result is most likely relevant to his search as this gTLD is reserved for healthcare professionals. A second use case is a website which is set up by a healthcare professional or a healthcare organization which aims directly at patients. Such a website could offer services like telemedicine, self-service portals or professionally moderated support groups.
Simple non-moderated forums and the like are not a use case for the gTLD .med if there is no healthcare professional involved.
d- Forecasted demand
In order to consider the gTLD’s introduction successful, DocCheck AG expects to operate 60.000 “.med” domains by the end of year 3 of registry operations. The aggregated forecast on registered “.med” domains is therefore as follows:
Year 1: 16.000
Year 2: 40.000
Year 3: 60.000
This forecast includes direct sales of domains to accredited registrars, but also additional sales by DocCheck AG in combination with already existing services. The business case in question 46 “Projections Template” will further illustrate which revenues are expected from the registry business, i.e. including DocCheck AG’s registry activities.
e- Beyond mission and purpose
Our purpose of hosting the gTLD .med goes beyond the mere provision of an additional Top Level Domain. When introducing a TLD for professionals in the field of medicine and health, we believe that the respective TLD must be safeguarded against any insecure and⁄or fraudulent behaviour. Therefore, D |