The .fidelity Dot Brand

FMR LLC (a group of affiliated businesses known as "Fidelity Investments") is a provider of financial products & services including investment management, retirement planning, securities brokerage and portfolio guidance. It provides financial products & services to over 20 million individuals & institutions. With around 39,000 employees, it administers assets of around USD 3.6 trillion.

A fundamental aim of the new .fidelity TLD is to promote trust and confidence for the benefit of internet users. Confusion will be eliminated and authoritative information about the Applicant's financial and investment management offerings will be presented. Internet visitors will be assured of brand authenticity across every distinctive .fidelity website. Interaction will be convenient and efficient.

Fidelity also shares ICANN's mission to promote the public interest.

The proposed .fidelity string has great potential for customers to learn about the company's financial services, industry topics and trends. Fidelity will be able to "communicate with its customers directly and effectively". It will be an opportunity to provide personalized reporting to clients. It will be a reference point.

The company has around three million daily site visitors and trillions of dollars in assets under management. "In this regard, consumer trust and continuous innovation are paramount considerations in all its activities."

Fidelity has trademarks on the term "Fidelity" in numerous countries, and currently owns "exact match" domains in generic and country code TLDs such as .com, .net, .org, .fm, .com.pr and .us.

Under the status quo, Fidelity describes the difficulty of finding good, relevant domains for its offerings. And if available, they are often expensive to acquire. With its own domain TLD, the company describes the coming scenario as "creating domain names on demand."

The company will institute a media plan to promote info about its new TLD, though initially, they will re-direct to existing Fidelity content. "Fidelity intends to utilise a variety of marketing channels, both traditional and online, to educate its customers and internet users about the new .fidelity gTLD..."

The Applicant expects to register between 5 and 100 domains in the first three years, a number likely to rise as the company introduces new financial and investment products and services. Domains will be registered that correspond to its financial offerings, business unit (or affiliate) names and geographic identifiers. Consumers will ultimately have more choice.

...the .fidelity gTLD will enable user-driven improvements and innovations assisting Fidelity's marketing efforts through its ability to create new second and third level domain names on demand.

The .fidelity extension gives the Applicant the opportunity to create a coherent online brand presence around the world.

Online brand coherence is particularly important for financial services providers such as Fidelity where consumer trust and protection is critical, especially in this era of new web-based and mobile technologies which Fidelity has embraced to provide information, products and services to customers.

In the past, the domain name system has suffered from malicious registrations designed to mislead consumers. As the sole registrant of the .fidelity string, this problem can be circumvented. "The new .fidelity gTLD will provide an authentic, secure and reliable central location for current and potential customers and other consumers...".

...criminal activities over the internet including data breach, hacking and phishing activities have also become more sophisticated resulting in loss of consumer confidence beyond mere monetary harm. The .fidelity gTLD will facilitate greater trust and assurance from internet users connecting with Fidelity online...

Geographic Dot Brands

Fidelity will initially reserve those country and territory names from registration in the .fidelity TLD as required in Specification 5 of the Registry Agreement. Subject to review by the GAC and ICANN, and provided that the relevant governments agree, the Applicant may ultimately release geographic terms for use in the .fidelity brand extension "based on its implementation of measures to avoid confusion with the corresponding country names".

...Fidelity believes that the use of geographic terms can provide great benefit and simplicity to internet users because these terms are intuitive ways to resolve to content that may be specifically relevant and targeted to users in the particular country or geographic region...

Possible .fidelity Brand Domains

Investor.fidelity
MutualFunds.fidelity
Retirement.fidelity
IRA.fidelity
Securities.fidelity
Benefits.fidelity
Contact.fidelity
My.fidelity

Notes

Brand names mentioned on this site are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective corporations. This site claims no association with or endorsement by any of these corporations and their marks are mentioned only to illustrate opinion presented in the public interest.

All quotations on this page are from the respective companies' official ICANN brand TLD applications unless otherwise stated.

Many possible theoretical dot brands are mentioned (in English). There are also countless possibilities in other languages. This has significant potential value for international navigation.

This site is focused on reporting the strategic impact of the brand domains on internet communication, competition and commerce, and some comment is speculative.

It is not a comprehensive overview of what some of the world's largest corporations have chosen to reveal about their plans for the implementation of their proprietary domain strings.

ICANN is particularly concerned with the technical, financial, security and legal issues associated with the new TLDs. These issues are beyond the scope of this website.

For a comprehensive overview of the brand domains and their impact on the web, refer to ICANN's website and the individual applications (large parts of which are publicly published).

If you have a particular interest in an individual company, the public aspects of their applications are available for download via these ICANN links: You can also search a complete list of applicants there.

ICANN new gTLD applications

ICANN official website

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