DotBrand Readiness in
the Indian Subcontinent
By Stuart Fuller, Com Laude’s TLD Services Director andVivek Goyal, Chief Operating Ofﬁcer, LdotR

Introduction
The liberalisation of the domain name space in 2012 was the opportunity fororganisations to play their part in the online revolution. Just over a decade later, rather
than seeing a revolution in the digital space it has been more of an evolution. After arelatively slow start to active registration and usage of dotBrand domain names, weare now starting to see some innovative use cases by a number of organisations.
The clamour for a second round started almost immediately as the announcement of
the successful applications was made, with many brands seeing their competitors
potentially stealing a march with their new dotBrands. Behind the scenes, the ICANN
community started working on a comprehensive review of the whole program, fromapplication to launch, spending years debating the detail. In the last few months, theﬁnalisation of that work has been published, opening the door for the second round to
begin in Q2 2026.
Whilst that still may seem some way off into the future, many ambitious brands who
see how owning their own TLD could create a competitive advantage for them in the
online space are already in the feasibility and planning stage for the second round,ensuring they stay one step ahead of the process to be fast and ﬁrst when the time isright.
Before we can explore the future, it is important that we look at some of the lessons
from the past, especially when determining the opportunities that exist today andtomorrow in the Indian market. With web usage predicted to continue to grow in theregion, driven by the double-digit growth in mobile internet access, the opportunities
for ambitious brands to create a digital advantage and move one step ahead of thecompetition and the bad actors has never been stronger. However, there are some
important considerations when applying for a dotBrand.

Whilst the dotBrand
landscape is still in its
infancy in India, ..... there
is a great opportunity forsome of the ambitious,
digitally focused brands
to create compellingusage scenarios.

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Client-Shaped dotBrand Services

The ﬁrst application round
Organisations began considering an application for a new gTLD once the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) ﬁnally agreed to an expansionof the domain name space at their public meeting in Singapore in June 2011.
The UK-based tech industry website, The Register (www.theregister.co.uk), suggested
that there would be “as many as 500 applications for new TLDs, with a substantial
portion being dotBrands”
ICANN insiders predicted that between 100 and 200 brand holders would make anapplication to join a very exclusive club; one that offered the beneﬁt of owning a sliceof the internet, stressing that this would be a “once in a digital lifetime” opportunity toapply to run a Top-Level Domain.
Come June 2012, when the names and numbers were revealed, almost 650
organisations had invested time and resources in making an application to run at least
one dotBrand. They came from all four corners of the globe and from every conceivablebusiness sector. A signiﬁcant number were household names, brand leaders withperceived sizeable marketing budgets. They would be the chosen few who had thegenuine opportunity to gain a competitive advantage over rivals that had missed out.
Interestingly, the concept of “dotBrand envy” started to raise its head after theapplications were revealed, with executives asking why their company hadn’t applied,and offering to write a blank cheque to get in on the act.

DotBrand usage in India
The 2012 new gTLD round was a momentous occasion for the Indian domain industry
and brought the hitherto unknown aspects of the DNS into light for a multitude ofbusinesses and brands.
About 1.2% (22) of the total applications came from India, of which 16 were eventuallydelegated. These included – Airtel, HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries, State Bank of India,
and Tata Motors. Some of these organisations, such as Reliance Industries, applied formore than one.
Barring the application for dotOOO, all applications were for dotBrands. Most of theapplications were more in-line with the existing domain acquisition strategy and were
“defensive” in nature, which explains the relatively low active
usage for many to date. A few applicants had a business plan toutilise the brand TLD, but it was mostly made irrelevant by thelong assessment period of up to 3-4 years, by which time manyof the original stakeholder team members had moved onto newroles or left the organisation.
However, one company that has actively used its dotBrand andis carving a path for others to follow is India’s largest bank andone of the top 50 in the world by total assets, the State Bankof India.
The Bank applied for two dotBrand TLDs in the ﬁrst application
round – dotSBI and dotStateBank. It has been the former TLD
that the bank has developed as their core digital asset, withover 110 domain names registered as of the 31st October 2023.

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Client-Shaped dotBrand Services

The decision to participate in the new gTLD round was driven from the very top in StateBank of India and that is reﬂected in the coherent way the TLDs have been applied
across Marketing, Customer service, IT and Cybersecurity verticals within the bank.
With over 2.2 million unique visitors every month, the website “onlinesbi.com” was one of
the most visited ﬁnancial services websites in the world. The bank made the decision to
fully migrate to their dotBrand, rather than using a web forward meaning thatonlinesbi.sbi is now the most visited dotBrand domain name in the world today.
They have also registered, and are actively using a number of other dotBrand domainnames, reﬂecting different product sets and business units including homeloans.sbi,
prepaid.sbi and yonobusiness.sbi.

onlinesbi.sbi

There are two major beneﬁts from using the dotBrand TLD for the bank.
1. By using the dotSBI TLD, clients understand that any communication using the
TLD is genuine, making it a key initiative in the ﬁght against online fraud. This inturn improves the year-on-year Cybersecurity rating for the bank because of theincreased security that dotSBI offers, due to it being an abuse-free space.
2. The bank is able to create new domains and websites at will, underpinned by theirown security credentials, which improves user experiences through simpliﬁcation of
naming conventions and URL structures. This in turn improves natural SEO
ranking results.

dotBrand.....a secure digital,
abuse-free environment by having
complete control over who canregister and use any domainnames within the TLD. This meansthat the organisation is able todeliver secure, branded URLs forcustomers, building levels oftrust that do not exist within theexisting domain name system.

The path to the second application round
With the clock now ticking down on the launch of the second application round,announced by ICANN as commencing in Q2 2026, brand holders that are considering
applying for their own dotBrand (or dotBrands) should begin planning to ensure they
are ready when the window opens.
The Applicant Guidebook will provide the necessary detail for successful applications
when it is published at some point in 2025. However, it is prudent now for organisationsin India to be considering whether or not they are going to make an application for a
dotBrand. That will require planning both from a ﬁnancial and operational perspective.

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Client-Shaped dotBrand Services

The key to hitting the ground running with a dotBrand application is to ensure that
there are deﬁned usage scenarios in place, aligned to wider business goals and metrics,
as well as being able to internally justify the return on investment. The decision onwhether to apply for a dotBrand should not be made on the perceived success of theﬁrst round, although history has taught us that the organisations that have successfully
adopted a dotBrand have been those that created a vision, and were prepared tochallenge the norms.
There is tremendous potential for the second round of gTLDs in the Indian
subcontinent, driven by the following factors:• Internet penetration has grown in India from 12.6% in 2012 to 48.7% in 2023 which
represents 692 million users that access services and make purchases using theinternet [1]• India now boasts of over 100+ startups worth more than $1billion each, whichprimarily are internet based and use a domain name as a gateway to theirbusiness. [2]• Technology is elevating every aspect of human life using the internet as the
backbone for delivery of services, creating new businesses that understand theimportance of domain names and branding. This includes sectors such as EdTech,
AgriTech, MedTech, GovTech, FinTech, Deftech, a fact underlined by Union Minister
Rajeev Chandrasekhar when he commented that "The digital economy has gone from
4-4.5% in 2014 of the total GDP to 11% of the total GDP today. And we expect thedigital economy to contribute over 20% of our GDP by 2026," [3]• There is a big push from the government to make services available in local languages
and Internationalised Domain Names (or IDNs, which are domain names in non-Latin
scripts) can help make this a reality online. The lack of existing TLDs in local languages
mean there is a great opportunity for organisations to apply for, andoperate new IDN TLDs to access the bottom of the pyramid.

“ The digital economy has gonefrom 4-4.5% in 2014 of the total
GDP to 11% of the total GDP today.
And we expect the digital
economy to contribute over 20%
of our GDP by 2026"
Rajeev Chandrasekhar

Many businesses who either did not apply in the ﬁrst round or were not successful inacquiring a dotBrand TLD, will use the opportunity presented by Round 2 to claim apiece of the internet for their brand and business, such as Air India, Indigo, Adani,
Apollo, Alembic, Asian Paints, and many others.
[1] https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2023-india[2] https://inc42.com/features/indias-unicorn-club-the-comprehensive-list-of-unicorns-in-india/[3] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/digital-economy-to-contribute-over20-of-indias-gdp-by-2026-union-minister-rajeev-chandrasekhar/articleshow/102799686.cms

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Client-Shaped dotBrand Services

Reasons to apply for a dotBrand
Most organisations that applied in the ﬁrst application round went through signiﬁcantamounts of due diligence before they decided to apply for their dotBrands. Whilst somewill have applied to purely support a digital brand protection strategy, many createdcompelling
application and usage reasons which have become more relevant overtime.

However, it should be noted that many of these beneﬁts can really only be realised if the
dotBrand is actively used. These beneﬁts have included:• Offering a secure digital, abuse-free environment by having complete control over
who can register and use any domain names within the TLD. This means that theorganisation is able to deliver secure, branded URLs for customers, building levels oftrust that do not exist within the existing domain name system.
• The ability to create a unique, user-friendly naming convention and structure for
URLs that not only makes hierarchical sense but delivers key beneﬁts from natural
search and SEO purposes.
• The creation of additional, innovative domain security measures that could include
encryption and unique identiﬁcation. With many organisations looking at adopting
blockchain technologies, owning a digital asset that could be easily adapted for
unique addressing is highly beneﬁcial.
• The opportunity to reduce existing domain name and infrastructure costs (as there
will be less need to keep large portfolios of defensive domain names) and reducesome SEO spend.
• Using the dotBrand at the heart of business continuity planning by creating a ‘liftand shift’ strategy for core and critical domain names.
The opportunity to acquire a dotBrand is coming, and brand holders are assessing thepotential beneﬁts for their digital futures. While a dotBrand is not right for everyorganisation, there is merit applying to register core trademarked terms with thepotential to implement innovative use cases. Use cases which, in turn, will provide
measures of project success.

With the clock now
ticking on the secondround opportunity, it isimportant for any brandthat is considering anapplication to start the
preparation work today.

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Client-Shaped dotBrand Services

The next steps
Steps should be taken today to assess the opportunity and understand therequirements of running a dotBrand. There are many considerations, including the
choice of TLD, who should be in the stakeholder team, website naming
conventions/taxonomy and assessing whether an application will succeed.
The importance of undertaking a feasibility study – identifying any potential issues withyour desired string - as early as possible can head off signiﬁcant work, resources, andcost at a later point.
Once the feasibility study has been delivered, organisations will have a very good feelon whether an application is likely to succeed. At this stage many potential applicants
will start to engage a wider internal team and develop a business plan for the TLD(s) as
part of the Pre-Application phase.
With the second-round application window announced by ICANN to start in 2026, it islikely that the Pre-Application planning work will need to start in late 2024, providing a
12–18-month runway for creating the business plan, building the internal stakeholder
team, developing potential use case scenarios, and engaging with relevant third
parties, such as a Registry Services Provider to provide the technology platform for
the TLD.

Summary
The fast-approaching second ICANN gTLD application period is another compelling
moment in the evolution of the domain name industry. It has been over a decade since
any organisation was able to apply for a dotBrand, and there has been a growing
demand from brand holders across verticals and regions.
Whilst the dotBrand landscape is still in its infancy in India, aside from the strategy
being followed by State Bank of India, there is a great opportunity for some of theambitious, digitally focused brands to create compelling usage scenarios. With thefunded start up market growing in value, and the development of technology hubs inregions such as Bengaluru, Chennai and Mumbai driving future growth, we will see
more
the engagement both from applicants and web users in the future. The increase in

number of IDNs, reﬂecting local language usage of the web, will also play a major partin the future success of the dotBrand programme.
Second Round demand is likely to come once again from a core set of industries:
ﬁnancial services; telecommunications and technology; and market segments thatdemand high levels of brand protection, trust, and innovation.
With the second-round just over two years away, now is the time to begin considerationof the opportunity and planning for an application.

Contact us today to discuss how Com Laude’s dotBrand
experts will guide you to a brighter digital future.
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