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

Prototypical answer:

gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.MAILGMO Registry, Inc.gmoregistry.comView

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

Specialty
.MAIL provides a unique TLD choice that is unavailable in the current spread of gTLDs. The term “mail” is immediately recognizable, universal and memorable, and is commonly associated with email when applied to an online context.

The current new gTLD program offers unprecedented levels of protection to rights owners. Rights protection mechanisms embedded within the program rules are a culmination of years of community efforts and bottom-up consensus processes developed at ICANN. This alone means .MAIL, as a gTLD that is compliant with the current new gTLD requirements, offers significant advantages compared to legacy gTLDs.

Service Levels
Recognizing that email is a critical service that is expected to be highly available and reliable, the Applicant is committed to providing industry leading service levels in order to maintain an impeccable reputation for security, reliability and availability.

The Applicant aims to operate the .MAIL TLD in a secure and stable manner, adopting industry best practices where applicable. The Applicant’s operational goals are to have DNS load dispersion that is resilient to DDoS attacks, industry-leading level of Whois information change and DNS record change reflection time, substantial registrar support, and abuse window operation 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The Applicant will also implement proven security measures at every level of business and technical operation in order to provide maximum protection for its stakeholders. This includes stringent security policies and procedures, as well as comprehensive abuse handling mechanisms to mitigate security threats to the TLD. In addition, the Applicant will strive to provide an outstanding level of technical and operational support to registrars.

Reputation
The Applicant aims to achieve a reputation for .mail as a secure and reliable namespace. Its unique concept is coupled with industry leading service levels, proven track record by GMO Registry, its parent organization GMO Internet, and the GMO Internet Group. The Group also comprises globally trusted online security brand, GlobalSign, and some of the longest established ISP service brands in Japan meaning the Applicant is uniquely positioned to understand the needs of ISPs, one of the intended markets. The Applicant believes that it will earn the trust of registrants and users, amass a strong database of domain names with quality and relevant contents and services, and establish a highly trusted namespace.


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

.MAIL will expand choice in the current gTLD space by offering a unique TLD with high quality, relevant content. Because email and related online communications tools are used by most Internet users regardless of gender, nationality, or age, the target audience of .MAIL will have significant overlap with registrants of other TLDs. As such, the Applicant anticipates being in direct competition with current and new TLDs.

.MAIL is unique because it provides a clearly defined context for registered domain names. This affords registrants a more powerful and expressive online brand and identity when compared to existing, broadly defined gTLDs. Being a new gTLD with a specific meaning and purpose, the .MAIL namespace will likely be less cluttered than current TLDs, and therefore provide more opportunities for registrants to adopt a direct and meaningful online identity.

.MAIL aims to be a pervasive name space for innovative online communication products and services. For example, introduction of smartphones helped create a ubiquitous network society that spurred innovations in messaging; by using certain applications, smartphone users can text and call one another for free. Although the importance of phone numbers has diminished, that of email accounts has only increased; Android, the most widely used smartphone operating system, requires users to register an email account during initial setup. According to comScore Reports, “82.2 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in July 2011, up 10 percent from the preceding three month period.” (comScore Reports July 2011 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share) Usage of devices that require email accounts is growing rapidly, and the Applicant believes that .MAIL will contribute value to the Internet namespace as email platforms and methods of online communication continue to evolve.


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

The Applicant will endeavor to achieve the following goals relating to user experience;
Users find that the services and contents associated with .MAIL are relevant, and of high quality;
Users do not experience performance or reliability issues with regards to the registry services that .MAIL provides;
Users are not exposed to abusive or malicious content.

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

In order to achieve the goals stated above, the plans for .MAIL domain name registration policies are as follows. All .MAIL TLD registrars are required to include policies and restrictions in the registration agreements with their customers, including but not limited to, the following, and registrants must agree to comply.

Draft Abusive Use Policy
The Applicant defines abuse as any activity that may harm the stability and security of the DNS and Internet, including, but not limited to:

- Illegal or fraudulent activities;
- Phishing;
- Pharming;
- Using or distributing malicious software (malware);
- Sending unsolicited bulk messages (spam);
- Posting, trading, or exchanging information that harms minors;
- Posting, trading, or exchanging child pornography;
- Posting information that encourages illegal acts, crimes, murders, or suicides; and
- Posting information that is offensive to public order or morals.

The Applicant reserves the right to deny, cancel or transfer any registration or transaction, or place any domain name on lock, hold or similar status, at its sole discretion, to enforce the policy.

In addition, the Applicant intends to set up an abuse support service (abuse report form and abuse support window) that will be operated 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

In case an abuse use is reported, the Applicant will take appropriate measures in accordance with the suspension flow provided separately (Please refer to Question 28).

2. Accuracy of Registration Information
In order to ensure that Internet users can interact with the .MAIL namespace with confidence, registration data associated with domain names must be appropriate and accurate, and there should be no fraudulent registration or usage. For this reason .MAIL registrants are obligated to provide and maintain correct, complete, and current registration information (Whois information).

Failure to comply with this policy may result in the domain name registration being denied, cancelled, or transferred; the Registry Operator shall also be entitled, in such cases, to delete any such domain names, or place them on lock, hold, or similar status.

3. ICANN Policies
The Applicant will adopt and comply with the Uniform Rapid Suspension System, Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, and all other mandatory ICANN consensus policies, regulations and rules (collectively the “ICANN policies”). All .MAIL domain name registration will be subject to the ICANN policies.

v. 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.

.MAIL will comply with the applicable laws of Japan, as well as applicable ICANN consensus policies. As part of its responsibility as the registry operator of the .MAIL TLD, the Applicant will exercise due care to protect all information it receives from registrants or users through registrars, and will not disclose such information to any third party, with the exception of public Whois data.

The Applicant does not provide any additional measures beyond its obligation as a registry operator. The Applicant places no restrictions on the use of Whois proxy services, to the extent permissible by law.

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

In order to achieve the projected benefits, .MAIL must gain substantial mindshare among Internet users. The Applicant believes that the primary method of increasing recognition and registration numbers in the TLD is to gain strong support from .mail registrars. For that reason, the Applicant intends to:
- Maintain regular communication with registrars;
- Attend ICANN meetings and domain name⁄Internet related events and have face to face meetings with registrars; and
- Organize events for registrars
Feedback from registrars will be then taken into account, and integrated into public relations and marketing activities that the Applicant organizes where appropriate.

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