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18(a) Describe the mission/purpose of your proposed gTLD

gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.EXTRASPACEExtra Space Storage LLCmsn.comView
Extra Space Storage® Inc. (Extra Space) is a real estate investment trust based in Salt Lake City, Utah with regional offices in California, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Texas. Extra Space Storage is the second largest operator of self-storage in the U.S., and is a national owner, developer, acquirer and operator of professionally managed self-storage properties.
Extra Space Storage is a thirty year old company that has been involved in the self-storage industry since its inception. It is a growth-oriented company creating a new standard in the self-storage industry. Both customers and communities benefit from Extra Space Storageʹs professional approach to storage. Featuring attractive, convenient and secure facilities operated by professional managers, Extra Space Storage seeks to change the association of self-storage as a temporary holding place for rarely-used things to a desirable, safe, and customer-oriented facility perfectly suited for maintaining and accessing valued personal and business possessions.

Extra Space Storage Inc., headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, is a fully integrated, self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust that owns and⁄or operates 870 self-storage properties in 34 states and Washington, D.C. The Companyʹs properties are comprised of approximately 550,000 units and over 59 million square feet of rentable space, offering customers a wide selection of conveniently located and secure storage solutions across the country, including boat storage, RV storage and business storage. The Company is the second largest owner and⁄or operator of self-storage properties in the United States and is the largest self-storage management company in the United States.

The preservation of this brand is of paramount importance to Extra Space in all aspects of its operations, including and especially on the Internet. Operating the brand as a gTLD will likely be an important part of its digital strategy in the future. Extra Space will be analyzing and evaluating other .BRAND gTLD applications as well as general market adoption to determine short and long-term potential best-in-class use case options to most effectively serve and enhance Extra Space’s online strategy as a leader in the self storage market.

The intended future mission and purpose of the .EXTRASPACE gTLD is to serve as a trusted, hierarchical, and intuitive namespace provided by Extra Space and its qualified affiliates, for Extra Space customers. Extra Space will be the entity to file this application and bring the .EXTRASPACE gTLD to market.

Although ICANN has not specifically recognized a .BRAND gTLD specification in the current round, it is widely anticipated in the brand community that this will become a specialty subset of gTLDs. .EXTRASPACE is intended to be one of those .BRAND gTLDs, with the goal of protecting Extra Space’s online presence and identity, expanding its marketing and promotion efforts, providing a secure channel for online products and services.

Extra Space intends to initially limit registration and use of domain names within the .EXTRASPACE gTLD to Extra Space and its qualified affiliates. This initial limited use will allow Extra Space to establish its operations and achieve full sustainability. This limited distribution coupled with the other requirements set forth in Specification 9 of the Template Registry Agreement is intended to exempt Extra Space from its annual Code of Conduct Compliance requirements.

Extra Space currently plans a three-stage rollout for Extra Space’s gTLD(s):

1. Stage One

The initial stage of implementation of the gTLD will involve Extra Space registering a limited number of .EXTRASPACE second-level domain names.

This initial use will provide Extra Space’s IT and security personnel the time to run a number of tests to ensure seamless and secure access using the .EXTRASPACE gTLD domain names, interoperability with various software and Web-based applications, and unbroken and secure use of all names. This initial allocation will also allow the appropriate Extra Space staff to coordinate with the internal and external staff responsible for the application, delegation and setup phases of the .EXTRASPACE gTLD to ensure a proper transition from delegation to full operation.

2. Stage Two

Once all testing has been successfully completed, Extra Space will begin allocating domain names in .EXTRASPACE for more widespread internal corporate use. During this same period of time, Extra Space will begin evaluating strategies to potential migrate traffic away from its existing second-level domain names.

It is in Stage Two that Extra Space will evaluate expanding the operations of the gTLD to permit registration by other registrants such as licensees or other strategic parties. Should an assessment of its expansion strategy lead to a decision to extend registration rights to other parties, this expansion is currently planned to take place during Stage Three. However, any expansion would be conditioned upon a review of the Specification 9 (Registry Code of Conduct) set forth in the template registry agreement to ensure compliance with Extra Space’s business model.

3. Stage Three

Depending upon the analysis of the evaluations undertaken in Stage Two, Extra Space may begin to implement the migration of Internet traffic away from Extra Space’s legacy domain names, and toward the Extra Space gTLD. It is in this stage that Extra Space also may implement its decision to extend registration rights to licensees or strategic parties, depending upon compliance with Specification 9 as noted above. The dates of such expansion are subject to change depending upon business, strategic, and industry factors at the time.

After consideration of the following factors: analysis of Extra Space’s existing domain name portfolio; internal analysis of marketing initiatives; and the fact that Extra Space will have full control over the number of registrations in the .EXTRASPACE gTLD namespace, Extra Space is confident that the number of domain name registrations will be less than 3,000 in the first five years of operation.

Based on its experience to the end of Year 5, and based on its experience with any expansion implemented in Stage Three, Extra Space will assess whether its business plan and any future expansion strategy. It is anticipated by Extra Space that changes to the domain name industry, and particularly the impact of .BRAND gTLDs, will take at least five years to be realized and assessed. Any decision to expand the gTLDs beyond corporate, qualified subsidiary and affiliate, and licensee use will take into account this experience as well as the technical analysis of potential expansion.

The potential use of the .EXTRASPACE gTLD by these or other business segments will also be driven by Extra Space’s future business strategies as identified in its annual report and investor filings.
gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.energyBinky Birch, LLCdonuts.coView
Q18A CHAR: 7985

ABOUT DONUTS
Donuts Inc. is the parent applicant for this and multiple other TLDs. The company intends to increase competition and consumer choice at the top level. It will operate these carefully selected TLDs safely and securely in a shared resources business model. To achieve its objectives, Donuts has recruited seasoned executive management with proven track records of excellence in the industry. In addition to this business and operational experience, the Donuts team also has contributed broadly to industry policymaking and regulation, successfully launched TLDs, built industry-leading companies from the ground up, and brought innovation, value and choice to the domain name marketplace.

DONUTS’ PLACE WITHIN ICANN’S MISSION
ICANN and the new TLD program share the following purposes:
1. to make sure that the Internet remains as safe, stable and secure as possible, while
2. helping to ensure there is a vibrant competitive marketplace to efficiently bring the benefits of the namespace to registrants and users alike.

ICANN harnesses the power of private enterprise to bring forth these public benefits. While pursuing its interests, Donuts helps ICANN accomplish its objectives by:

1. Significantly widening competition and choice in Internet identities with hundreds of new top-level domain choices;
2. Providing innovative, robust, and easy-to-use new services, names and tools for users, registrants, registrars, and registries while at the same time safeguarding the rights of others;
3. Designing, launching, and securely operating carefully selected TLDs in multiple languages and character sets; and
4. Providing a financially robust corporate umbrella under which its new TLDs will be protected and can thrive.

ABOUT DONUTS’ RESOURCES
Donuts’ financial resources are extensive. The company has raised more than US$100 million from a number of capital sources including multiple multi-billion dollar venture capital and private equity funds, a top-tier bank, and other well-capitalized investors. Should circumstances warrant, Donuts is prepared to raise additional funding from current or new investors. Donuts also has in place pre-funded, Continued Operations Instruments to protect future registrants. These resource commitments mean Donuts has the capability and intent to launch, expand and operate its TLDs in a secure manner, and to properly protect Internet users and rights-holders from potential abuse.

Donuts firmly believes a capable and skilled organization will operate multiple TLDs and benefit Internet users by:

1. Providing the operational and financial stability necessary for TLDs of all sizes, but particularly for those with smaller volume (which are more likely to succeed within a shared resources and shared services model);
2. Competing more powerfully against incumbent gTLDs; and
3. More thoroughly and uniformly executing consumer and rights holder protections.

THIS TLD
This TLD is attractive and useful to end-users as it better facilitates search, self-expression, information sharing and the provision of legitimate goods and services. Along with the other TLDs in the Donuts family, this TLD will provide Internet users with opportunities for online identities and expression that do not currently exist. In doing so, the TLD will introduce significant consumer choice and competition to the Internet namespace – the very purpose of ICANN’s new TLD program.

This TLD is a generic term and its second level names will be attractive to a variety of Internet users. Making this TLD available to a broad audience of registrants is consistent with the competition goals of the New TLD expansion program, and consistent with ICANN’s objective of maximizing Internet participation. Donuts believes in an open Internet and, accordingly, we will encourage inclusiveness in the registration policies for this TLD. In order to avoid harm to legitimate registrants, Donuts will not artificially deny access, on the basis of identity alone (without legal cause), to a TLD that represents a generic form of activity and expression.

DONUTS’ APPROACH TO PROTECTIONS
No entity, or group of entities, has exclusive rights to own or register second level names in this TLD. There are superior ways to minimize the potential abuse of second level names, and in this application Donuts will describe and commit to an extensive array of protections against abuse, including protections against the abuse of trademark rights.

We recognize some applicants seek to address harms by constraining access to the registration of second level names. However, we believe attempts to limit abuse by limiting registrant eligibility is unnecessarily restrictive and harms users by denying access to many legitimate registrants. Restrictions on second level domain eligibility would prevent law-abiding individuals and organizations from participating in a space to which they are legitimately connected, and would inhibit the sort of positive innovation we intend to see in this TLD. As detailed throughout this application, we have struck the correct balance between consumer and business safety, and open access to second level names.

By applying our array of protection mechanisms, Donuts will make this TLD a place for Internet users that is far safer than existing TLDs. Donuts will strive to operate this TLD with fewer incidences of fraud and abuse than occur in incumbent TLDs. In addition, Donuts commits to work toward a downward trend in such incidents.

OUR PROTECTIONS
Donuts has consulted with and evaluated the ideas of international law enforcement, consumer privacy advocacy organizations, intellectual property interests and other Internet industry groups to create a set of protections that far exceed those in existing TLDs, and bring to the Internet namespace nearly two dozen new rights and protection mechanisms to raise user safety and protection to a new level.

These include eight, innovative and forceful mechanisms and resources that far exceed the already powerful protections in the applicant guidebook. These are:

1. Periodic audit of WhoIs data for accuracy;
2. Remediation of inaccurate Whois data, including takedown, if warranted;
3. A new Domain Protected Marks List (DPML) product for trademark protection;
4. A new Claims Plus product for trademark protection;
5. Terms of use that prohibit illegal or abusive activity;
6. Limitations on domain proxy and privacy service;
7. Published policies and procedures that define abusive activity; and
8. Proper resourcing for all of the functions above.

They also include fourteen new measures that were developed specifically by ICANN for the new TLD process. These are:

1. Controls to ensure proper access to domain management functions;
2. 24⁄7⁄365 abuse point of contact at registry;
3. Procedures for handling complaints of illegal or abusive activity, including remediation and takedown processes;
4. Thick WhoIs;
5. Use of the Trademark Clearinghouse;
6. A Sunrise process;
7. A Trademark Claims process;
8. Adherence to the Uniform Rapid Suspension system;
9. Adherence to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy;
10. Adherence to the Post Delegation Dispute Resolution Policy;
11. Detailed security policies and procedures;
12. Strong security controls for access, threat analysis and audit;
13. Implementation DNSSEC; and
14. Measures for the prevention of orphan glue records.

DONUTS’ INTENTION FOR THIS TLD
As a senior government authority has recently said, “a successful applicant is entrusted with operating a critical piece of global Internet infrastructure.” Donuts’ plan and intent is for this TLD to serve the international community by bringing new users online through opportunities for economic growth, increased productivity, the exchange of ideas and information and greater self-expression.