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

Prototypical answer:

Neustar believes the .neustar top-level domain will play a vital role in revolutionizing the Internet by adding greater specificity to the namespace, as well as serving as a platform to expand its online presence and improve branding efforts. One of Neustar’s overall goals is to ensure that the .neustar top-level domain becomes a trusted, secure, and stable operation that Internet users can trust as the true source of information from Neustar.

The .neustar gTLD will ensure that customer entities relying on Neustar branded services for critical infrastructure will have a secure domain in which to share the proprietary and confidential information with Neustar.  Neustar will also be able to provide and maintain individual service level agreements (SLAs) with customers desiring guaranteed availability.

The .neustar gTLD will add to the content space by providing a clear and unambiguous location at which to secure services from Neustar.  Neustarʹs reputation of trusted neutrality, along with our history of providing secure and reliable services to the industries we serve require that we protect our brand for ourselves and our customers with a single gTLD.

More specifically, Neustarʹs goals for the .neustar gTLD are to:
1. Provide a single, secure location for all Neustar-branded services;
2. Ensure no customer confusion regarding location of Neustar-branded services; and
3. Provide the Internet community a single location for interacting with Neustar.

Neustar believes that a proposed .neustar gTLD has the potential to offer the following benefits to Internet users and consumers:
* Establish a trusted source of information for the thousands of Neustar customers who purchase Neustar’s services, for investors and third parties seeking information about Neustar, and for the general Internet user population;
* Provide Neustar and its affiliates with short and memorable Internet addresses;
* Provide increased navigation to products, services, advertising campaigns, public interest content, public awareness initiatives, etc;
* Through the adoption of new gTLDs by the wider Internet user community, consumers may benefit from a lower incidence of phishing and malware often associated with mistypes of domain names in the .com space that are owned by cybersquatters, since consumers will be navigating to domain names in the .neustar gTLD; and
* Minimize the cost and need for defensive registrations because domain names will only be allocated by Neustar within the .neustar gTLD to Neustar and qualified subsidiaries and affiliates.

18(b)1 What is the goal of your proposed gTLD in terms of areas of specialty, service levels, or reputation?

The .neustar top-level domain will be a safe, stable, and secure operation. As stated above, Neustar is well-known within the ICANN and global Internet community for its provision of domain name registry services in compliance with the strictest industry-leading service levels since its award of the .biz gTLD by ICANN in 2000. Neustar has historically met or exceeded its service level obligations for all of the TLDs it operates, including .biz and .us as well as .co, .tel and .travel for which it provides back-end registry services. Neustar has a history of operating a number of mission-critical services in addition to its registry operations, including the maintenance of the North American Numbering Plan and Local Number Portability which ensure the appropriate routing of all telephone calls in North America and DNS services for many of the top Fortune 500 companies in the world. The operation of each of these services must be at a level at or above those required in the current ICANN Registry Agreement for new gTLDs.


18(b)2 What do you anticipate your proposed gTLD will add to the current space, in terms of competition, differentiation, or innovation?
As a branded gTLD, the primary driving factors of a .neustar gTLD are differentiation and innovation. The success of the gTLD will be measured not by the number of domain names registered, but rather by the level of consumer recognition and trust that is placed in the .neustar gTLD. Using this benchmark, Neustar will strive to build consumer recognition and trust through usage of the .neustar gTLD.

The .neustar gTLD will simplify how internet users interact with Neustar’s services by providing a distinctive domain space. Internet users will be able to directly navigate to the .neustar gTLD site, as well as particular pages within the .neustar gTLD, saving time and resources searching for an official site. The current domain name system has shown that it is vulnerable to malicious abuses due to registration of domain names which seek to exploit consumer confusion. Neustar can address some of these vulnerabilities by maintaining complete control over the domain names registered under the .neustar domain space.

18(b)3 What goals does your proposed gTLD have in terms of user experience?
Neustar believes that the .neustar gTLD will provide a single trusted ecosystem experience for the thousands of consumers worldwide who purchase the company’s services, as well as those who seek information about Neustar, including investors and members of the press. Consumers will know that domains and content on .neustar are owned and controlled by Neustar and are thus more likely to be protected from infringing, pirated, or harmful content.

The initial use of the .neustar gTLD will involve a limited number of second-level domain names. This initial use will provide Neustar the ability to ensure seamless and secure access to the Neustar website and interoperability with various software and Web⁄mobile-based applications. After consideration of the following factors: analysis of Neustar’s existing domain name portfolio; internal analysis of marketing initiatives; and the fact that Neustar will have full control over the number of registrations in the .neustar gTLD namespace, Neustar reasonably assumes that the number of domain name registrations will be far less than 10,000 in the first five years of operation.

18(b)4 Provide a complete description of the applicant’s intended registration policies in support of the goals listed above.
Neustar currently intends for the .neustar gTLD to be used exclusively by Neustar and its qualified subsidiaries and affiliates. As Neustar intends to use the gTLD for its own branding purposes, most of the registration policies will be written into existing corporate policies. Neustar will implement the following registration policies:
1. .neustar Domain Name Eligibility Requirements
2. Acceptable Use Policy
3. Reserved Names
4. Rights Protection Mechanisms
5. ICANN Consensus Policies

1. Neustar Domain Name Eligibility Requirements
The .neustar Domain Registration Eligibility policy sets forth the guidelines that dictate the allowable labels for domain name registrations, who or what entities may register the names, how the names may be used as well as the technical criteria each name must meet.

Neustar proposes that only Neustar, its qualified subsidiaries and affiliates will be allowed to request second level domain registrations. Neustar will implement an internal process that will define how they can submit second-level registration requests and the process which will be used to approve such registrations. Neustar envisions having a domain management department that will be responsible for the receipt of domain name registration requests from specially designated and approved managers (Domain Manager) though a documented internal request form. Once the Domain Manager receives a registration request, an internal review will be completed to ensure the name complies with internal policies and procedures governing the registration of .neustar domain name as well as complies with the technical specifications in the ICANN Agreement. Once the name has undergone the standard review, and is deemed in compliance with internal rules and procedures, the name will be approved and submitted through an ICANN-Accredited Registrar for registration.

Neustar believes that it is eligible to an exemption to the ICANN Code of Conduct (Specification 9 of the new gTLD Registry Agreement). Neustar believes that limiting the number of registrars is important in order to protect the integrity of the brand and as such serves the public interest. Many of the registration terms for second level domain names will match those found in existing TLDs. The registration term will be allowed for one to ten years. At no point are domain registrations allowed for more years than the maximum registration term of 10 years or the minimum term of one year. Additional details regarding the registration, renewal, and transfer terms can be found in answer to Question 23 regarding Registry Services.

2. Acceptable Use Policy
Neustar intends to be the sole registrant in the .neustar gTLD, and will implement an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) to ensure that Neustar maintains all rights of registered names to protect the integrity of its registry, and achieve its goal of maintaining a safe and stable operation. The AUP also documents any restrictions related to use of the domain name and how the registry, may enforce its policies. More information on the AUP can be found in Neustar’s response to Question 28.

3. Reserved names
Neustar will comply with Specification 5 of the ICANN new gTLD Registry Agreement by initially reserving all names as required by Specification 5. These names will include:
* The label ʺEXAMPLEʺ as required by ICANN
* All two character labels will be initially reserved. Provisions for the release of these names is further described in relation to Neustar’s response to Question 22
* Tagged domain names (labels with a hyphen (ʺ-ʺ) in the third or fourth positions will only be allowed if they represent a valid internationalized domain name (IDN) in their ASCII encoding.
* Second level names for registry operations, defined by ICANN as: NIC, WWW, IRIS, and WHOIS.
* Country and territory names listed on the following internationally recognized lists will be initially reserved:
1. the ISO 3166-1 list including the short form and long form English versions,
2. United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names, Technical Reference manual for the Standardization of Geographical Names, Part III Names of Countries of the World
3. The list of United Nations member states in 6 official United Nations languages prepared by the Working Group on Country Names of the United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names

However, Neustar does believe that certain 2-letter names and country and territory names may be used in a manner unlikely to cause confusion with the country-codes, countries or territories and therefore is exploring ways in which such names may be released in accordance with ICANN policies and avoids consumer confusion. Please see Neustar’s response to question 22 for more information on the protection of Geographic Names.

4. Rights Protection Mechanisms
Neustar is committed to following all ICANN rules regarding protecting third party intellectual property rights within its TLD. Neustar plans to operate and maintain the .neustar space as an extension of its current branding activities, therefore, it is highly unlikely that names in the zone will interfere with the rights of other third parties.

Nevertheless, Neustar plans to implement all Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) as required by ICANN. These RPMs include the following, which are further explained in answer to Question 18 Part C as well as Question 29.
* Trademark Clearinghouse
* Sunrise and Trademark Claims Process
* Implementation of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP)
* Implementation of the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) mechanism

18(b)5 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.

As a United States public company with customers located around the globe, Neustar respects the privacy of its customers and other consumers. Neustar employs a variety of physical, electronic, contractual, and managerial safeguards to protect personal and confidential information through its services and on its websites. Neustar will take similar precautions to protect registrant and user data associated with the .neustar gTLD. Furthermore, given that every domain name will be registered to Neustar or a qualified subsidiary⁄affiliate, Neustar has a vested interest in ensuring that accurate and current registrant information is readily available in connection with each .neustar domain name.

Neustar will ensure that the operation of the .neustar TLD will be consistent with Neustar’s Privacy Policy, available on its website at http:⁄⁄www.neustar.biz⁄privacy.

18(b)6 Describe whether and in what ways outreach and communications will help to achieve your projected benefits.
The switch over to .neustar as the authoritative namespace for the Neustar brand will require a fair amount of time and effort to ensure that user confusion does not occur. Therefore, Neustar will incorporate the .neustar name into its existing marketing, outreach and communications activities in a calculated and deliberate fashion to ensure these goals are met.

Additionally, Neustar will implement an effective pre-delegation communications plan that will help users become aware of that the scope of the Internet is expanding and Neustar has elected to brand is primary web presence under the .neustar top level domain. After Neustar has implemented and announced its new web presence the focus on communications will cautiously lead users from the old domain name to the new domain names under the .neustar TLD.

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