16 Describe the applicant's efforts to ensure that there are no known operational or rendering problems concerning the applied-for gTLD string

Prototypical answer:

The only potential operating or rendering problem of which Dot Home LLC (“DH”) is aware relates to a concern brought forth in a SSAC report of 15 November 2010 entitled “Invalid Top Level Domain Queries at the Root Level of the Domain Name System” (SAC045) and available at http:⁄⁄www.icann.org⁄en⁄groups⁄ssac⁄documents.

In SAC045, SSAC investigated NXDOMAIN responses from the root level of the DNS and found that “home” was in the list of top 10 invalid TLDs for queries which are wrongly directed at root name servers as a result of configuration errors or incorrect invocation of DNS in configurations where name spaces other than the DNS are used on private networks. SAC045 notes that, if approved, “queries to the root level of the DNS for a string that hitherto returned NXDOMAIN would begin to return positive responses containing name servers of the new TLD.”

In this light, SAC045 found that any new TLD operator for a string on the list “may experience unanticipated queries and some TLDs may experience a non-trivial load of unanticipated queries…”. Further, SAC045 noted that parties that currently receive NXDOMAIN from root servers would “now receive referrals”.

DH is aware of these concerns and is confident that each concern can be more than adequately addressed. With regard to any “non-trivial load of unanticipated queries,” DH is confident that DH’s backend registry provider, Verisign, has sufficient capacity and capability to handle the level of “non-trivial” queries which it receives. Verisign is a world class back end registry provider, and, as detailed in responses to the technical questions, is more than capable of handling such a “non-trivial” query load.

With regard to SAC045’s concern regarding parties’ receipt of referrals where previously NXDOMAIN had been received, DH notes that, as set forth in DH’s answer to Question 18, the .HOME gTLD will be brought forth under the stewardship of the National Association of Realtors, and as such will be a restricted gTLD with registration and use rules promulgated by NAR. In this regard .HOME will not be a “parking” namespace attempting to take advantage of misdirected traffic. Registration and use in .HOME will have to comply with the policies and rules set forth by NAR. Further, as the mission⁄purpose of .HOME is to create a namespace wherein users come to find real estate related information, confusion with any connotation of the concept of “home page” will be minimized.

DH is confident that with Verisign as a back end provider and NAR as a steward, the .HOME gTLD will more than adequately overcome concerns noted in SAC045. Outside of SAC045, DH is unaware of any known operational or rendering problems related to the .HOME gTLD.

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