.com Registry Agreement Appendix 10

Service Level Agreement (SLA)

(1 December 2012)

Verisign, Inc. ("Registry Operator") strives to provide a world-class level of service to its customers. This Service Level Agreement ("SLA") provides remedies in the form of SLA Credits (as defined in section 2 below) should the operational performance of Registry Operator fall below certain Performance Specifications identified in Appendix 7.

1. Definitions.

Capitalized terms used herein and not otherwise defined shall have the definitions ascribed to them in the Registry Agreement, including, but not limited to Appendix 7.

2. SLA Credits.

If the Registry Operator fails to meet the Performance Specifications defined in Appendix 7, Section 6 thereof, to which Credit Levels apply, the Registry Operator shall pay credits to ICANN-Accredited Registrar(s) in accordance with the identified Credit Level for such failed Performance Specifications metrics, calculated in accordance with the Credit Level tables set forth in this Section 2 ("SLA Credit"). The SLA Credit due to each ICANN-Accredited Registrar shall be paid as an offset to registrations and other fees owed to Registry Operator by the ICANN-Accredited Registrar. SLA Credits represent the total credits, penalties and/or liabilities that may be assessed to the Registry Operator for a breach of the Performance Specifications set forth in Appendix 7. All SLA Credits shall be paid in U.S. Dollars. The Credit Level Table (Refer to Table SLA Credits) indicates the corresponding Credit Level for each Performance Specification to which Credit Levels apply. This SLA will be reconciled on a quarterly basis and unless otherwise specified in this SLA, SLA Credits will be issued on a quarterly basis.

App. 7 Reference	Performance Specification	SRS	Name Server	Whois
6.2.2, 6.2.3, 6.2.4	Service Availability	Level 2	Level 1	Level 2
6.3.1	Planned Outage - Duration	Level 6	NA	NA
6.3.2	Planned Outage - Timeframe	Level 5	NA	NA
6.3.3	Planned Outage - Notification	Level 5	NA	NA
6.4.1	Extended Planned Outage - Duration	Level 6	NA	NA
6.4.2	Extended Planned Outage - Timeframe	Level 5	NA	NA
6.4.3	Extended Planned Outage - Notification	Level 5	NA	NA
6.5.1	Processing Time - Check Domain	Level 3	NA	NA
6.5.2	Processing Time - Add/Create Domain	Level 3	NA	NA
6.5.3	Processing Time - Modify/Update and Delete Domain	Level 3	NA	NA
6.5.4	Processing Time - Whois Query	NA	NA	Level 3
6.5.5	Processing Time - DNS Name Server Resolution	NA	Level 3	NA
6.6.1	Update Frequency - DNS Name Server	NA	Level 4	NA
6.6.2	Update Frequency - Whois	NA	NA	Level 4

2.1 Credit Level 1 - Credit Level 1 is assessed for DNS Name Server Service Availability less than 100% per Monthly Timeframe. If the DNS Name Server Service Availability Performance Specification is not met, the SLA Credit for Credit Level 1 shall be payable to active ICANN-Accredited Registrars 30 days after the applicable calendar month in which the Service Availability Performance Specification was not met. For purposes of this Appendix 10, an "active" ICANN-Accredited Registrar is one who has registered greater than 150 net new .com domain names in the previous Monthly Timeframe.

Each active ICANN-Accredited Registrar that meets the requirements of Section 3 below would be credited an amount equal to such active ICANN-Accredited Registrar's net new .com domain name registrations during the applicable Monthly Timeframe divided by the net amount of new .com domain name registrations for all active ICANN-Accredited Registrars within the applicable Monthly Timeframe times the Monthly Credit Amount set forth in Table Credit Level 1.

Table Credit Level 1

	<30 sec.'s	30-60 sec.'s	1-2 min.'s	2-10 min.'s	10-30 min.'s	over 30 min.'s
SLA Credit Amount	$100,000	$175,000	$250,000	$400,000	$750,000	$1,000,000

2.2 Credit Level 2 - Credit Level 2 is assessed for SRS Service Availability less than 99.99% per calendar year and for Whois Service Availability less than 100% per Monthly Timeframe. If a Service Availability Performance Specification metrics are not met, the SLA Credit for Credit Level 2 shall be credited directly to active ICANN-Accredited Registrar(s) that meet the requirements of Section 3 below in an amount equal to the duration of the outage times (OT) times the average daily number of .com registrations over the previous three (3) months (NRAvg) times the .com wholesale fee divided by the number of minutes per day (1,440 minutes).

Active ICANN-Accredited Registrar would be credited:

(.com Registry Fee)*(OT)*(NRAvg)
(1,440 minutes)

Additionally, for any month where the total combined Unplanned Outage of SRS and Whois is greater than 30 minutes, Registry Operator will credit active ICANN-Accredited Registrars that meet the requirements of Section 3 below One Thousand Dollars ($1,000).

2.3 Credit Level 3 - Credit Level 3 is assessed for failure to meet the Performance Specifications for the Processing Time for check domain, add/create, modify/update and delete domain commands, and DNS Name Server Resolution and Whois queries. If the Processing Time Performance Specifications metrics are not met, the SLA Credit for Credit Level 3 (Refer to Table Credit Level 3) shall be payable to active ICANN-Accredited Registrars in an amount based upon the % of time that the Processing Time exceeds the applicable Performance Specifications metric.

Each active ICANN-Accredited Registrar that meets the requirements of Section 3 below would be credited an amount equal to such active ICANN-Accredited Registrar's net new .com domain name registrations during the applicable Monthly Timeframe divided by the net amount of net new .com domain name registrations for all active ICANN-Accredited Registrars within the applicable Monthly Timeframe times the SLA Credit Amount set forth in Table Credit Level 3 within 30 days after the applicable calendar month.

Table Credit Level 3

	5 - <10%	10 - <25%	25 - <50%	≥50%
SLA Credit Amount	$500	$1,000	$2,000	$5,000

2.4 Credit Level 4 - Credit Level 4 is assessed for failure to meet the Performance Specifications for Update frequencies for DNS Name Server and Whois. If the Update frequency Performance Specifications metrics are not met, the SLA Credit for Credit Level 4 (Refer to Table Credit Level 4) shall be payable to active ICANN-Accredited Registrars in an amount based upon the % of time that the Update frequency exceeds the applicable Performance Specifications metric.

Each active ICANN-Accredited Registrar that meets the requirements of Section 3 below would be credited an amount equal to such active ICANN-Accredited Registrar's net new .com domain name registrations during the applicable Monthly Timeframe divided by the net amount of new .com domain name registrations for all active ICANN-Accredited Registrars within the applicable Monthly Timeframe times the SLA Credit Amount set forth in Table Credit Level 4.

Table Credit Level 4

	Up to <15 minutes over	15 minutes to <1 hour	1 hour to <12 hours	≥ 12 hours
SLA Credit Amount	$500	$1,000	$2,000	$5,000

2.5 Credit Level 5 - Credit Level 5 is assessed for failure to meet the Performance Specifications for Planned Outage Timeframe, Planned Outage Notification, Extended Planned Outage Timeframe and Extended Planned Outage Notification. If the Performance Specifications metrics are not met, the SLA Credit for Credit Level 5 shall be payable to each active ICANN-Accredited Registrar that meets the requirements of Section 3 below in an amount equal to such active ICANN-Accredited Registrar's net new .com domain name registrations during the applicable Monthly Timeframe divided by the net amount of new .com domain name registrations for all active ICANN-Accredited Registrars within the applicable Monthly Timeframe times One Thousand Dollars ($1,000).

2.6 Credit Level 6 - Credit Level 6 is assessed for failure to meet the Performance Specifications for Planned Outage Duration and Extended Planned Outage Duration. If the Performance Specifications are not met, the SLA Credit for Credit Level 6 shall be payable directly to active ICANN-Accredited Registrar(s) that meet the requirements of Section 3 below in an amount equal to the Average Daily Volume (ADM) of net .com new adds as averaged over the course of the previous three months times the Planned Duration Overage (PDO) in minutes times the SLA Credit graduated financial penalty set forth in Table Credit Level 6. For purposes of this Appendix 10, PDO is calculated by subtracting the maximum allowable time in hours and minutes for a Planned Outage Duration or Extended Planned Outage Duration, as applicable, from the total outage in hours and minutes.

Table Credit Level 6

	1 to <15 minutes	15 minutes to <1 hour	1 to <3 hours	3 –to <6 hours	≥ 6 hours
SLA Credit	ADM*PDO*$0.25	ADM*PDO*$0.5	ADM*PDO*$1	ADM*PDO*$1.50	ADM*PDO*$2

3. Registrar Responsibilities.

In order for ICANN-Accredited Registrars to claim SLA Credits outlined in this Appendix 10, the procedures of this Section 3 must be strictly followed.

3.1 The affected ICANN-Accredited Registrar must report each occurrence of alleged failure by Registry Operator to meet a Performance Specification and make a request for SLA Credit to the Registry Operator's customer service help desk in the manner required by the Registry Operator (i.e., e-mail, fax, telephone) in order to be eligible for a SLA Credit. An affected ICANN Accredited Registrar must initiate a  request for SLA Credits within three months of the end of the calendar year in which the failure to meet a Performance Specification occurred.

3.2 Each ICANN-Accredited Registrar must inform the Registry Operator any time its estimated volume of transactions (excluding check domain commands) is expected to exceed the ICANN-Accredited Registrar's previous month's volume by more than 25%. In the event that an ICANN-Accredited Registrar fails to inform Registry Operator of a forecasted increase of volume of transactions of 25% or more and the ICANN-Accredited Registrar's volume increases 25% or more over the previous month, and should the total volume of transactions for the Registry Operator for all ICANN-Accredited Registrars for that month exceed the Registry Operator's actual volume of the previous month's transactions by more than 20%, then the ICANN-Accredited Registrar will not be eligible for any SLA Credits outlined in this SLA in that Monthly Timeframe. An ICANN-Accredited Registrar shall provide such forecast at least 30 days prior to the first day of the applicable calendar month. Registry Operator agrees to provide monthly transaction summary reports to ICANN-Accredited Registrars via e-mail.

3.3 The affected ICANN-Accredited Registrar must provide documentation to support its claim for a SLA Credit. An ICANN-Accredited Registrar shall provide documentation in the form of either:

a) ICANN-Accredited Registrar initiated notification(s) to the Registry Operator of a Performance Specification that exceeded SLA limits or failed to meet SLA requirements, including the trouble ticket number issued by the Registry Operator. The closing ticket(s) should be included as well in order to determine the total downtime (unless the trouble ticket includes this); or

b) Notification from the Registry Operator (with trouble ticket number attached) of a Performance Specification that exceeded SLA limits or failed to meet SLA requirements. The closing ticket(s) should be included as well in order to determine the total downtime (unless the trouble ticket includes this).

3.4 In order to calculate credits, the affected ICANN-Accredited Registrar must include volume figures for the past three (3) calendar months (or, if less, such amount of time that the ICANN-Accredited Registrar has been authorized to register names in the .com registry) and a certification that these numbers accurately reflect the minimum number of registrations that would be covered during the affected period.

3.5 Registry Operator shall perform the required measurements in order to corroborate the total SLA Credits requested by ICANN-Accredited Registrar. Such measurements and associated documentation shall be delivered by e-mail to each of the ICANN-Accredited Registrars requesting a SLA Credit.

3.6 When the above steps have been accurately completed, Registry Operator shall provide notification of the number of SLA Credits that will be entered in the affected ICANN-Accredited Registrar's account that can be used immediately toward .com domain name registrations and other fees owed to Registry Operator by the ICANN-Accredited Registrar.

4. Obligations.

4.1 Except in the case of cross-network name server performance (which is not a subject of this Service Level Agreement), Registry Operator will perform monitoring from at least two external locations and a minimum of one internal location as a means to verify that a) sessions can effectively be established and b) EPP commands can be successfully completed.

4.2 In the event that all ICANN-Accredited Registrars are affected by a SRS unavailability, the Registry Operator is responsible for opening a blanket trouble ticket and immediately notifying all ICANN-Accredited Registrars of the trouble ticket number and details.

4.3 In the event that the System Services are unavailable to an individual ICANN-Accredited Registrar, Registry Operator will use commercially reasonable efforts to re-establish the affected System Services for such ICANN-Accredited Registrar as soon as reasonably practicable. Any System Services unavailability attributable to any individual ICANN-Accredited Registrar that does not represent a System Services outage will not result in SLA Credits or be subject to this SLA.

4.4 ICANN-Accredited Registrar(s) and the Registry Operator agree to use reasonable commercial good faith efforts to establish the cause of any alleged System Services unavailability. If it is mutually determined to be a Registry Operator problem, the System Services unavailability will be subject to this SLA.

4.5 The Registry Operator will use commercially reasonable efforts to restore any System Services within 24 hours after the termination of a force majeure event and restore full system functionality within 48 hours after the termination of a force majeure event. Outages due to a force majeure will not be considered System Services unavailability, impact the Performance Specifications set forth in Appendix 7, or be subject to this SLA.

4.6 The Registry Operator will open incident trouble tickets within a commercially reasonable period of time and will treat all system performance problems in order of decreasing severity and fix them within a commercially reasonable period of time. Incidents flagged by the measurement system will also qualify as ticketed events and will be subject to this SLA.

4.7 The Registry Operator will publish monthly system performance and Service Availability reports.

5. Miscellaneous.

5.1 This SLA is independent of any rights, obligations or duties set forth in the Registry Agreement. In the event of any conflict between the terms and conditions of this SLA and the Registry Agreement, the Registry Agreement shall control.

5.2 As an addendum to the Registry-Registrar Agreement ("RRA"), no provision in this SLA is intended to replace any term or condition in the RRA.

5.3 Dispute Resolution will be handled per RRA Section 6.7.

5.4 Any interruption of System Services that occurs, as a direct result of RRA Sections 2.13 (Resolution of Technical Problems), 5.4 (Non-Payment of Fees), or 6.3 (Force Majeure) or any other applicable provision within the RRA or Registry Operator's compliance with any Consensus Policy established after the Effective Date, will not be subject to this SLA, but only to the extent and for so long as such interruption of System Services is unavoidable by commercially reasonable efforts due to Registry Operator's compliance with such provisions within the RRA or any Consensus Policy established after the Effective Date.