Ncc Regulatory News (NCC)

17 February 2014

NCC Group plc

Acquisition of rights to first gTLD - .trust

NCC Group plc (LSE: NCC, or 'the Group'), the international, independent provider of Escrow and Assurance, has acquired the right to operate the generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) .trust from Deutsche Post, for an undisclosed fee.

Deutsche Post originally obtained the gTLD through ICANN's new gTLD allocation process during 2013 but has now chosen not to utilise it.

NCC Group will use .trust as the primary vehicle for launching its Artemis internet security service, which aims to create global internet safety through a secure and trusted environment for selected customers. This service is expected to be commercially available from the start of the Group's next financial year in June 2014.

The Group remains in the contention stage with its application to ICANN for the .secure gTLD. It believes that there will be a benefit in having a number of complementary named gTLDs, all of which offer the same high levels of internet security.

The ICANN rules for resolving contentions between parties, who apply for the same gTLD, are now clear and subject to any last minute changes, auctions will begin in groups from April 2014. It is expected that the auction group including .secure will now take place in November 2014.

Rob Cotton, NCC Group Chief Executive, said:

"We are on course to launch a secure and trusted internet environment in our next financial year. .trust provides us with our first gTLD for our Artemis internet security service. We are also confident of signing up our first customers for this exciting and innovative service shortly.

"Having more than one gTLD for the Artemis platform will be very beneficial and we remain fully committed to the ICANN allocation process for .secure."

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