.juniper

THE MISSION AND PURPOSE OF THE NEW RESTRICTED .JUNIPER gTLD IS TO BENEFIT INTERNET USERS BY ENSURING INCREASED TRUST AND CONFIDENCE THROUGH THE ELIMINATION OF USER CONFUSION AND ASSURANCE OF BRAND AUTHENTICITY.

The new .juniper gTLD will operate as a restricted registry, in which Juniper Networks, Inc (Juniper) can create and control domain spaces that promote its brand identity and authenticity. In this regard, the .juniper gTLD will be used by Juniper to provide information, services and resources to consumers in a way that promotes trust, simplicity and innovation. The .juniper gTLD will provide an authoritative internet space for Juniper and, potentially, its affiliates and partners that are associated with the brand. Second and third level domains can then be utilised for information marketing purposes, with internet users assured of brand authenticity.

Juniper is a high-performance networking company offering routing, switching, security, application acceleration, identity and policy control, and management services. Since its establishment in 1996, Juniper's products and technologies has been running the world's largest and most demanding networks, enabling its customers to create value and accelerate business success within the new rapidly changing marketplace. Headquartered in California, the company has over 9,000 employees in offices across 46 countries such as Australia, USA, United Kingdom and Russia. Juniper offers its services to leading global service providers including 96 companies listed in the Global Fortune 100, as well as federal, state and local government agencies and higher education organisations throughout the world. Amongst its other accolades, Juniper was awarded as one of 2011 World's Most Ethical Companies by Ethisphere's Ethics Inside Certification and as Business Solution's Best Channel Vendor 2011. Juniper seeks to offer a high-performance network infrastructure built on simplicity, security, openness and scale. The company is also continually innovating ways that will empower its customers, partners and, ultimately, everyone connected in the online world. In this regard, consumer trust and continuous innovation are paramount considerations in all of Juniper's activities.

Business activities are increasingly conducted over the internet, allowing for greater levels of interaction between businesses and customers. As a result, both businesses and end users benefit from ease of interaction and a wider range of choices with lower transaction costs. However, the development in this arena in the current domain name system has exposed both businesses and consumers to increased criminal activities over the internet, including data breach, hacking and phishing. These sophisticated criminal activities cause reputational damage to businesses as internet users lose consumer confidence and trust with the businesses targeted by such criminal activities. The .juniper gTLD will facilitate greater trust and assurance from internet users connecting with Juniper online, whilst still allowing convenient and efficient interaction.

Juniper's mission and purpose of the proposed new gTLD share ICANN's initiatives to promote public interest. Juniper is committed to contribute towards achieving such initiatives in line with ICANN's Affirmation of Commitments, which includes:

- consumer trust: the .juniper gTLD registry will be operated in a centralised manner with a restrictive registration policy. Registration of domain names will only be available to Juniper, at this stage, which will provide added consumer trust that .juniper domain names are trustworthy. As .juniper domain names are subject to registration standards, policies and procedures under Juniper's control, this eliminates the possibility of malicious conduct within the .juniper domain space;

- competition: the proposed new gTLD is not intended to instigate competition and consumer choice at the level of registration of domain names among prospective registrants. Instead it is anticipated to contribute to ICANN's initiatives to promote public interest through its operation focused on promoting consumer trust. Increased trust in the .juniper gTLD will drive existing and new top level domain (TLD) registry operators to make improvements in mechanisms to improve consumer trust of their TLDs; and

- consumer choice: the proposed new gTLD will enable user-driven improvements and innovations assisting Juniper's marketing efforts through its ability to create new second and third level domain names on demand. These names will provide the consumers with more choices for interacting with Juniper online. As Juniper has effective control over the registration and use of domain names under the .juniper domain space, this will also contribute towards general service innovations on the internet.


Given the restricted nature of the .juniper gTLD, the projected number of registration is likely to be limited. It is anticipated that a more limited number of 4 domain names will be registered in the first year. However, over the next few years, the number of registrations is likely to increase up to 50 domain names as Juniper develops and implements new services and marketing campaigns.

Juniper intends to create relevant domain names for use including product, services or geographic names in the second or third level domain names. In accordance with registration policy and the proposed measures for protection of geographic names as outlined in response to Question 22, Juniper will use geographic names to localise its websites in the countries in which it operates, such as USA, Australia and United Kingdom. The use of geographic names is intended to:

- connect internet users with relevant information as applicable to the territory; and

- comply with required rules and regulations in the national territory.


At this stage, Juniper does not intend to utilise Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) at the second level. However, as the use of the .juniper gTLD evolves, it is anticipated that Juniper will utilise IDNs such as Chinese within the .juniper domain space to allow internet users to engage with .juniper in their native language, creating a more positive user experience and encouraging diversity.

Juniper is a well-recognised global brand in the internet networking business with its "Juniper" trademark registered in 29 countries and territories for Electrical and scientific apparatus (Class 9); Building construction and repair (Class 37); Education and entertainment (Class 41) and Computer, scientific and legal (Class 42). Juniper also has its "Juniper Networks" trademark registered in 44 countries for the same categories.

Juniper is currently using an existing domain name, which is an exact match to the applied-for .juniper in juniper.net. In addition, Juniper has an extensive domain name portfolio including the "Juniper" trademark in over 50 gTLDs such as juniper-networking.com and junipernetworks.org and about 20 country-code TLDs (ccTLDs) including junipernetworks.ru and junipernetworks.hk.

Juniper believes that the .juniper gTLD is unlikely to cause confusion with either a generic term or any existing TLDs. Juniper's trademarks are a leading global brand with significant reputation in America and countries all around the world. Juniper has used the term .juniper in conjunction with its network infrastructure services for almost 20 years. As such, the Juniper brand is well known in the internet networking industry.

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