Frequently Asked Questions

In order to maintain the integrity of our mission statement as well as our relationship with each Secretary of State’s office, only US Registered Corporations, Limited Liability Companies and Limited Liability Partnerships may apply for a .INC, .LLC, .LLP, or .CORP extension. In order to apply for a Dot Registry LLC domain name, a Registrant must be registered with one of the Secretaries of State’s offices in the United States, the District of Columbia, or any of the U.S. possessions or territories as a business entity pursuant to that jurisdiction’s laws on valid corporate registration.

A Registrant must apply for an extension that matches their business entity registration for example: Brown Bag, INC could not apply for brownbag.LLC but it could apply for brownbag.CORP or brownbag.INC.

A Registrant must apply for a domain that matches or includes a substantial part of the Registrant’s legal name. For example, Blue Star Partners, Inc. would be able to purchase either BlueStarPartners.INC or BlueStar.INC.

If there are Registrants applying for the same domain names, which correspond to their legal business names as registered in different states, then the “.CORP” domain will be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis to the first Registrant.

However, if a Registrant has a trademark registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), then such Registrant will have priority over any other Registrant to be awarded the applied-for entity domain.

If a Registrant’s entity-specific domain has already been awarded to another Registrant with the same or similar legal name, then Dot Registry LLC will offer to award such Registrant an entity-specific domain with a distinctive denominator; including but not limited to, a tag, company describer or name abbreviation. For example, if BlueStar.CORP was awarded to Blue Star Partners, Inc. of California, then Blue Star Partners, Inc. of Kansas would be offered the opportunity to use BlueStarPartners.CORP.

Each Registrant is required to submit their state of incorporation, legal business name, registered business address, and a minimum of one contact person for the business. Dot Registry LLC will then verify this information with the appropriate Secretary of State’s Office in order to determine if the Registrant is in fact a US Registered Corporation, Limited Liability Company or Limited Liability Partnership.

Dot Registry LLC will then verify this information on an annual basis to ensure that the integrity of the business network is maintained over time.

Yes. Domain names can and will be revoked under any of the following situations:

1. Registrant previously awarded an entity-specific domain ceases to be registered with a Secretary of State or legally applicable jurisdiction.
2. If a Registrant previously awarded an entity-specific domain is dissolved and/or forfeits the domain for any reason.
3. If a Registrant previously awarded an entity-specific domain is administratively dissolved by the Secretary of State or legally applicable jurisdiction.

Any Registrant found to be “Inactive,” or who has falsely applied for an entity name, will be issued a probationary warning by their Registrar, allowing for the Registrant to restore its active status or resolve its dissolution with its applicable Secretary of State’s office.

If the Registrant is unable to restore itself to “Active” status within the defined 30 day probationary period, their previously assigned entity-specific domain will be forfeited.

You can still reserve your entity-specific domain while you are waiting to register with your Secretary of State’s office, but your domain cannot go live until you have completed registration.

These designations are reserved for members of the US Registered Business Communities of Corporations, Limited Liability Companies and Limited Liability Partnerships. Foreign entities will not be allowed to apply or hold an entity-specific domain extension.

In addition to Dot Registry LLC comprehensive eligibility, verification, and policing mechanisms, Dot Registry LLC will implement a series of Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPM), including; but not limited to, support for and interaction with the Trademark Clearinghouse (“Clearinghouse”), use of the Trademark Claims Service, segmented Sunrise Periods allowing for the owners of trademarks listed in the Clearinghouse to register domain names that consist of an identical match of their listed trademarks, subsequent Sunrise Periods to give trademark owners or Registrants that own the rights to a particular name the ability to block the use of such name, and stringent take-down services policies and all required Uniform Dispute Resolution Policies.

No. Registrants will not be allowed to register product line registrations, regardless of the product’s affiliation to the entity. All awarded domains must match or include a substantial part of the Registrant’s legal name.

If a Registrant has a trademark registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), then such Registrant will have priority over any other Registrant to be awarded the applied-for, entity-specific domain.

It is important to note that “community” in this context may not necessarily refer to a neighborhood or group of people, but any group that can be classified similarly, who are then held to a defined set of standards in order to be considered as part of that community. Examples given in the ICANN guidebook are: legal entities, individuals united by a shared language, or a logical alliance of communities, such as an international federation.

ICANN also requires that: members of the proposed “community” share an awareness of community and have a clear, straightforward definition of who is considered a member/ why and how they gain admittance.

.INC, .LLC, .LLP and .CORP are considered community designations by ICANN’s standards because each clearly defines a business entity in the United States that is verifiable and held to a universal set of standards for operation. Dot Registry LLC chose to apply for a community application because we viewed this to be the only assured safeguard we could create for the US Business Communities of Corporations, Limited Liability Companies, and Limited Liability Partnerships online.

Community extensions are designed to protect members of the proposed community. Because of this, ICANN requires that policies should be established which show an alignment with the community-based purpose of the application and include, at minimum, the following:

1. Restricted eligibility of registration to community members.
2. Clear naming guidelines.
3. Enforcement policies to protect the community and consumers from fraudulent registration, abuse, cyber crimes, etc.

Additionally, changes to the proposed policies must fit with the community based purpose of the extension and should show not only the benefit to the community, but also the protections associated with the proposed change.

Dot Registry LLC has filed four separate community-based applications for the strings .LLC, .LLP, .CORP and .INC. In each case, the given community is defined as any Corporation, Limited Liability Company, or Limited Liability Partnership registered in the United States and its territories. We chose to apply for community applications for these strings because we believe it is the clearest way to protect the integrity of each extension. We view these strings as communities because each abbreviation specifically refers to a designated group in the United States, which are held to a similar set of admittance requirements, as well as continued operational standards.

Dot Registry LLC has designed registration policies with the assistance of several Secretaries of State in order to accurately capture the membership criteria and comply with state regulations applicable to these entities. Each entity, at minimum, will be required to submit the following items upon registration:

1. Legal Business Name
2. State of Incorporation
3. Registered Business Address
4. Registered Agent / Contact information

This information will be cross-referenced with their state registration information to verify not only the provided information, but the entity’s status of good standing within its state. All of these items will be reviewed annually and enforcement mechanisms put in place to suspend or revoke a previously issued domain if the entity does not comply with state mandates for business operations.

Additionally, consumers will have instant access to all of our Registrants’ entity information, which greatly reduces or eliminates the possibility of misrepresentation, registration by proxy, or fictitious registrations.

Dot Registry LLC is not only a member of the Community of Registered US Limited Liability Companies, we additionally worked diligently to build a relationship with the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) (whose membership consists of the 50 States and the majority of US Territories), as well as individual Secretaries of State, to ensure our continued ability to serve the community at large. We view this relationship as not only valuable, but essential, given that the Secretaries of State are charged with the registration of members in our designated communities.

We are aware that these abbreviations are used in other countries as corporate designations; however, we chose to focus on the US designations because we have developed a process by which Dot Registry LLC is able to identify the relevant members of the community and monitor their admittance. Countries such as Singapore, Australia, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and Canada use variations of these designations, though their registration requirements and corporate definitions vary from the US. We are interested in serving US registered corporate entities; specifically, Corporations, Limited Liability Companies and Limited Liability Partnerships, as well as Incorporated Businesses, Benefit Corporations, Mutual Benefit Corporations or Non-Profit Corporations because they are clearly delineated groups with a long history and a driving force in the world economy.