18(b) How do you expect that your proposed gTLD will benefit registrants, Internet users, and others?

Prototypical answer:

18.2.1 How do you expect that your proposed gTLD will benefit registrants, Internet users, and others?

Safety Registry believes that the proposed .SAFETY gTLD has the potential to offer the following benefits to Internet users, customers, and potential customers:

1) Establish a leading source of information and an online marketplace for the millions of Internet users, businesses, governments, and others that consume, rely upon, and interact with safety information as well as safety-related products and services on the Internet;

2) Provide short and memorable domain names for the provision of relevant safety content to the Internet population. The domains may facilitate the ease by which customers and potential customers can locate critical information or products online;

3) Potentially minimize the social costs and harm to Internet users by reducing incidents of phishing and malware often associated with mistypes of domain names in the .COM space;

4) Potentially minimize the social costs and harm to customers by giving them access to safety-related information and products via a trusted and reputable namespace in .SAFETY.

5) Incorporate enhanced intellectual property rights protection mechanisms (RPMs), specifically an additional safeguard to enhance the chances that any initial reserved⁄allocated names for use by Safety Registry that are in connection with the management and operations of the gTLD do not violate any potential third-party rights.

6) The incorporation of Registrant Eligibility (i.e., who is eligible to register domain names within the .SAFETY gTLD); Name Selection Criteria (i.e., ensuring that the domain name corresponds to a trademark, service mark, or business name); and Authorized Usage policies that will be established in accordance with the .SAFETY Charter prior to launch.

18.2.2 What is the goal of your proposed gTLD in terms of areas of specialty, service levels, or reputation?

Through the .SAFETY gTLD, Safety Registry intends to develop a leading online resource that will provide Internet users, customers, potential customers, corporations, and first responders with the framework to access and interact with experts and peers, relevant content, and generally needed and valuable safety information.

Safety Registry will also ideally be able to provide access to safety-related products and online content in a gTLD that aims to minimize piracy, cybersquatting, and other malicious activities. Providing customers and potential customers with a more secure online arena is of paramount importance to Safety Registry and Grainger, and the .SAFETY gTLD will be used to further that goal.

Safety Registry is driven by the same core values as its parent company, Grainger, and it plans to leverage this experience to bring a spirit of public service to the .SAFETY gTLD.

18.2.3 What do you anticipate your proposed gTLD will add to the current space, in terms of competition, differentiation, or innovation?

Unlike most generic gTLDs that ICANN has approved over the last decade, which have largely been operated by Internet startups, Safety Registry’s parent company, Grainger, is an established global company with the ability to leverage its existing network of businesses, partners, and customers in the safety space to increase the profile of the .SAFETY gTLD. While most registries have primarily been dependent upon ICANN-accredited registrars to market and promote their gTLD, Grainger intends to provide Safety Registry with the ability to leverage its large market share, strong reputation, longstanding commitment to philanthropy, and existing relationships with various organizations and businesses in the safety community to achieve its goals.

While some of ICANN’s new gTLDs have previously been the subject of claims regarding increased spam and phishing activities, from its launch, .SAFETY will aim to be a trusted source of safety-related content, goods, and services for Internet users. Safety Registry looks to follow the established good business practices of its parent company, Grainger, to create a network of sites and information with safeguards designed to minimize fraud and other illegal activity.

As a gTLD dedicated to the safety community, the primary driving factors behind the .SAFETY gTLD application are differentiation and innovation. Today, the Internet is plagued with fraudulent sites, harmful viruses, and misinformation. .SAFETY aims to protect customers and potential customers of safety-related information, services, and products by establishing a trusted network of websites and content related specifically to safety issues, services, and products.

The success of the .SAFETY gTLD will not be measured by the number of domains registered, but rather by the levels of customersʹ and potential customers’ recognition that are placed in the .SAFETY gTLD. Using this benchmark, Safety Registry strives to build recognition and trust through the usage of the .SAFETY gTLD that rise to the level of that found in the .EDU and .GOV gTLDs.

18.2.4 What goals does your proposed gTLD have in terms of user experience?

Safety Registry envisions that the .SAFETY gTLD can provide a single, more secure ecosystem experience for customers, potential customers, and many organizations worldwide that seek safety-related information, products, and services via existing online, print, mobile, and social platforms. Internet users and the general public will be able to access authoritative safety-related information from trusted sources within the .SAFETY gTLD. By providing the foundation of this trusted ecosystem, domain name registrants in the .SAFETY gTLD will likely be able to share in the benefits of this collective resource.

Through a collection of core generic domain names and geographically designated domain names, the .SAFETY gTLD plans to provide users with a seamless and more secure experience with all related content.

18.2.5 Provide a complete description of the applicant’s intended registration policies in support of the goals listed above.

In line with the mission stated in 18.1.1 above, Safety Registry plans to initially have safeguards in place to ensure that only approved agencies, organizations, and businesses operating in the safety industry are able to register second-level domain names in the .SAFETY namespace. However, as stated above, Safety Registry reserves the right to extend registration rights to potentially a broader class of registrants.

In addition, Safety Registry intends to provide for three base line policies that will be identified in the Charter and which must be fully designed and implemented prior to the launch of the registry. These policies include: Registrant Eligibility (i.e., who is eligible to register domain names within the .SAFETY gTLD); Name Selection Criteria (i.e., ensuring that the domain name corresponds to a trademark, service mark, or business name); and Authorized Usage policies. These policies are set forth in greater detail in the response to Questions 28, 29, and 30 of this application.

While these are the likely initial policies that Safety Registry will adopt for the operation of the .SAFETY gTLD, it recognizes that minimizing online harm to users of websites within the .SAFETY namespace will require diligence and a continued evolution of the policies. Therefore, Safety Registry is evaluating the potential creation of a policy advisory body that could draw upon a representative composition of the community to recommend best practices.

As noted above, depending upon the reception of the .SAFETY gTLD within the broader community, Safety Registry and Grainger envision the creation of a Safety Network that could serve as an independent membership organization, membership in which could be a prerequisite prior to being eligible to register a .SAFETY domain name. Grainger views this future creation of the Safety Network as an important step in the long term independence, viability, and credibility of the .SAFETY gTLD. If the Safety Network is to be created, the policy advisory board functions may shift to Safety Network.

Safety Registry endeavors to implement all of ICANN’s consensus policies and other Rights Protection Mechanisms (“RPMs”) identified in the Applicant Guidebook. In addition, Safety Registry intends to provide best-in-class safeguards that will evolve over time.

At the time of completing this application, Safety Registry has identified an RPM that will allow trademark owners to challenge domain names initially reserved by the registry (e.g., generic and geographic names identified in Section 18.1.1). This process will likely be modeled after the dotAsia Pioneer Policies adopted by dotAsia in connection with its launch, see http:⁄⁄www.wipo.int⁄amc⁄en⁄domains⁄gtld⁄asia⁄.

18.2.6 Will your proposed gTLD impose any measures for protecting the privacy or confidential information of registrants or users? If so, please describe any such measures.

Safety Registry recognizes that this is an evolving area of law for which there are no international standards. However, due to the fact that domain names within the .SAFETY namespace will be registered to members of the aforementioned Safety Network, Safety Registry has an interest in maintaining accurate and current domain name information, and making it readily available in connection with each .SAFETY domain name.

In addition, Safety Registry intends to incorporate contractual language in its Registry-Registrar Agreement (RRA) modeled after language that has been included in the template Registry Agreement and that has been successfully utilized by existing ICANN gTLD Registry Operators. The template Registry Agreement states “Registry Operator shall (i) notify each ICANN-accredited registrar that is a party to the registry-registrar agreement for the TLD of the purposes for which data about any identified or identifiable natural person (“Personal Data”) submitted to Registry Operator by such registrar is collected and used under this Agreement or otherwise and the intended recipients (or categories of recipients) of such Personal Data, and (ii) require such registrar to obtain the consent of each registrant in the TLD for such collection and use of Personal Data. Registry Operator shall take reasonable steps to protect Personal Data collected from such registrar from loss, misuse, unauthorized disclosure, alteration or destruction. Registry Operator shall not use Personal Data in a way that is incompatible with the notice provided to registrars.ʺ

18.2.7 Describe whether and in what ways outreach and communications will help to achieve your projected benefits.

As noted in 18.2.3, most of the generic gTLDs that ICANN has approved have primarily been operated by Internet startups created solely for the provision of domain name registration services, e.g., .INFO (Afilias), .BIZ (Neustar), and .TRAVEL (Tralliance). Grainger is an established global company with the ability to leverage its extensive network of partners, suppliers, customers, and related websites to establish the .SAFETY gTLD. While most registries have primarily been dependent upon ICANN-accredited registrars to market and promote their gTLD, Safety Registry will leverage current and future relationships both inside and outside of the Safety Network to increase the profile of the .SAFETY gTLD.

Through the initial phases of use, the .SAFETY gTLD will aim to allow Safety Registry to properly and sustainably develop the .SAFETY gTLD in such a manner as to ensure that the .SAFETY gTLD is viewed by Internet users as a trusted source for authoritative information, content, and products related to safety. Moreover, appropriate outreach and communication efforts will likely be done in conjunction with the initial stages of the rollout to market the .SAFETY gTLD to Internet users.

While Safety Registry will initially rely upon Grainger in the initial outreach and communication, the long-term independence, viability, and credibility of the .SAFETY gTLD may rely upon the aforementioned Safety Network to serve as a trustee of the Safety Charter. Moreover, as the registry will likely operate on a cost recovery basis, the members of the Safety Network may consider ensuring that there is a diverse and representative membership to share in this future ongoing operation of the registry.

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