.Kids Registry Policies

The .kids community gTLD references the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) as its guiding principles, and together with child advocacy partners, have put in place a set of .KIDS Guiding Principles, which is operationalized to curb inappropriate material for children on .kids domains.

The DotKids initiative understands nevertheless, equally, the importance of upholding the right of children to seek, receive and impart age appropriate information and knowledge through the Internet. As such, a delicate balance must be maintained for the .kids gTLD to avoid prohibitive registration requirements on one hand, and effective protective measures to respond to abuse on the other.

The .KIDS Guiding Principles

As a brief summary, the .KIDS Guiding Principles requires that registrants refrain from illegal and inappropriate materials to be published through a .kids domain, including content with explicit sexuality, violence, substance abuse, profanity, or other matters typically deemed unsuitable for children or adolescents, as well as content promoting the consumption of tobacco and alcohol by children (content depicting and suggesting adults consuming alcohol is not a problem), and child labor, trafficking and child soldier.

Registrants should also protect the privacy of children visitors to their website and services. A reporting and takedown process will be implemented by the .kids Registry to suspend resolution of .kids domains violating the Guiding Principles. This will be supplemented with an appeals mechanism to allow for reactivation of suspended domains. Note also that the Guiding Principles apply to the domain name string itself as well (i.e. domain names containing profanity terms and words are subject to suspension and deletion).

.KIDS Guiding Principles

The .KIDS Guiding Principles sets the basic requirement and outlines prohibited materials for .kids domains. This set of .KIDS Guiding Principles have been developed together with the .KIDS community and under the UNCRC principles.

Kids-Friendly Content Guide

A child-friendly cyberspace should contribute to the positive development and well-being of children around the world and value child voice and participation. While the Child-Friendly Content Guideline provides the baseline of the prohibited materials on “.kids” websites. This Child-Friendly Content Best Practices further offer reference for developing a child-friendly cyberspace, which aims to encourage content providers to deliver appropriate and child-friendly information for children. 

.KIDS Anti-Abuse Policy

This policy (“.KIDS Anti-Abuse Policy”) is announced pursuant to section 3.5.2 of the Registry-Registrar Agreement (“RRA”) in effect between DotKids Foundation Limited (“DotKids”) and each of its Registrars, and is effective (including as it is updated from time to time) upon thirty days’ notice by DotKids to Registrars. Abusive use(s) of domain names within DotKids owned and operated Top Level Domains (TLDs) should not be tolerated.

.KIDS Personal Data Protection Policy

These terms are the key provisions from the ICANN Agreements relating to data protection with which DotKids Foundation Limited (“DotKids”) must comply.

.KIDS Sunrise & Startup Policies

This document sets out the Sunrise policies and process for the launch of the .KIDS Registry. These policies and process are designed to ensure an orderly and equitable allocation of domains to qualified parties before the .KIDS Registry is opened for general registrations for the public.

.KIDS Sunrise Dispute Resolution Policy

This SDRP describes the standards that will be applied to resolve challenges to domain names improperly registered during the Sunrise Registration Period of the TLD.

.KIDS Objections Take-down Process and Appeals Policy

This policy sets out the processes by which abusive domain names within DotKids owned and operated Top Level Domains (TLDs) will be taken-down as well as appeals processes available to Registered Name Holders (“Registrants”).