@vivaldi , I don't see much difference in Symantec owning the gTLD over Donuts. However, a few things do stick out.
It appears that Symantec will only sell 45,000 domain names (which isn't a lot if we're speaking good generics or defensive registrations) and maintain those figures for over 6 years. (Please correct me if I interpreted that wrong.)
One major thing that could set them apart from others is the .security influence that they have gained over the years since 1991 with many loyal customers.
Yet, achieving this would be a difficult feat. I believe that the registry should provide Symantec signed SSL certificates for each domain as they will only be selling 90% of the 50,000 they applied for (45k). Though, looking at their
SSL certificates, they don't come cheap.
The cheapest certificate they provide is $399, but with that also comes with a big trust factor from people who immediately recognize Norton or Symantec. Obviously they could charge less, but they are using that money for insurance purposes because they do provide a $1,500,000 warranty in the event of a loss.
This is unlike GoDaddy which provides $100,000 in protection. However, GoDaddy standard SSL certificates range from $45 to $70.
If Symantec provided a cheaper certificate with reduced warranty protection, I
could see them achieving their 45,000 goal in 6 years.
With that being said, I could only see it if they charged $50 (a reduced "standard" they may not want to do) to $1500 (the highest price of their SSL certificates) per year for the domains which comes with SSL, some form of website scanning security like GoDaddy's SiteLock Website Security (their "Vulnerability assessment", except included on all domains) and other security measures like improved Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) that can easily be signed and put into action in any registrar that is going to sell this gTLD.
It's a heavy blow, but if a computer security company is going to own a gTLD that shout's "we're secure", they should put more into it than just a domain name to back it up.
At that point, I could see larger companies using a .security domain for various purposes, obviously not rebranding from a .com to a .security though.
On the other hand, I think they butchered that before they even bid on this gTLD in December and thought it through after I believe they were the first company to state
antivirus software is dead while still actively selling it.