gTLD	Full Legal Name	E-mail suffix	Detail
.NGO	Public Interest Registry	pir.org	View

PIR is a NGO, and thereby part of the NGO Community. PIR as a NGO has extensive gTLD management experience via the .ORG gTLD. PIR a supporting organization to the Internet Society (ISOC) and is committed to supporting the Internet Society’s (ISOC) mission stated below.

History of PIR’s Relationship to the NGO Community
In January 2003, PIR, assumed responsibility for operating .ORG and maintaining the authoritative database of all .ORG domains.

Created in 1984, .ORG is one of the Internetʹs original seven top-level domains (TLDs), along with .com, .net, etc. Although it is ʺopenʺ and ʺunrestrictedʺ, .ORG has been the domain of choice for organizations dedicated to serving the public interest. The high regard of these well-intentioned organizations was soon conferred to this domain, and today .ORG is considered around the world to be the domain of trust.

Public Interest Registry’s (PIR) primary activity is to maintain the .ORG domain registry as the exemplary top level domain (TLD) registry service, by advocating for higher standards of Internet security, safety and reliability. PIR’s mission is to facilitate the effective use of a global Internet among non-commercial and other Internet users worldwide. In its relationship with the ISOC, (reference Evaluation Questions #9a and #9b), PIR is committed to supporting ISOC’s goals of encouraging the evolution of the Internet as research, education and communication infrastructure equally accessible to the global non-commercial, NGO and nonprofit community. PIR’s activities also include funding educational programs focused on expanding the knowledge and ability of non-commercial, NGO and nonprofit organizations located in technologically deprived areas of the world to more efficiently and effectively use the Internet as a tool to better accomplish their important mission.

The 2003 transition of .ORG from the previous operator to PIR was the largest transfer in Internet history. More than 2.6 million domains were transferred in about a day, without negatively impacting any .ORG registrant or website.

Since 2003, PIR has been connected with NGOs through our management of .ORG, and recently in preparation for our pursuit of the .NGO gTLD domain, we have worked closely with the NGO Community to develop the requirements and specification for the proposed .NGO gTLD.

Current Relationship to the NGO Community
PIR is a strong supporter of NGOs in both a direct role as manager of the .ORG gTLD and through other efforts, including:
• A ʺStrategic and Sponsoring Partnerʺ of NTEN, the Non-Profit Technology Network of 10,000 members and over 30,000 participants in the community, covering 126 countries. NTEN aspires to a world where all nonprofit organizations use technology skillfully and confidently to meet community needs and fulfill their missions.
• Making financial contributions to various organizations, such as the NCUC (Non Commercial Constituency of ICANN) and Centr. For NCUC, annual donations have been in the $5,000 to $15,000 range every year since PIR assumed operations of the .ORG registry.
• In December 2005, PIR sponsored a symposium at the Nelson Mandela Center in Cape Town, South Africa bringing in various Internet leaders in Africa to discuss the needs of the Internet in Africa.
• In response to Hurricane Katrina, in New Orleans, Louisiana, PIR donated $1 for every new create for a limited time. The final donation was over $100,000 to the Red Cross.
• In response to JapanʹsTsunami disaster, a 3 month program was rolled out to waive renewal fees for Japanese domain name holders, in order to help those affected and unable to renew their .ORG domains.

Within the community, there is a wide appreciation of PIR’s role as an advocate of “do good” for the Internet at large, and in many countries around the world there is a general perception that .ORG domains are more trusted than other domains. At the time of application submission, PIR manages nearly 10 million .ORG domains, and is seen to do so in an exemplary way. We are very happy to be judged on this reputation.

PIR has over 500 letters of support from the NGO Community endorsing its application for .NGO. PIR will continue outreach to the community and anticipates receipt of additional support letters from NGOs throughout the ICANN application evaluation process. Specific recognition of PIR’s efforts to support the nonprofit community includes:
• “As a not-for-profit corporation, we believe that being part of the .org domain has done much to reinforce MITRE’s identity as an organization chartered to work in the public interest. [Thanks to PIR’s] continuing work to enhance the .org domain.ʺ - Al Grasso, President and CEO, The MITRE Corporation (the first .ORG registrant).
• “We recognize and applaud PIRʹs long-standing commitment to the non-profit community since taking over the management of .ORG.” - Lisa Vogt, APR, Director of Marketing & Communications, SOS Children’s Villages – USA.

PIR has conducted outreach, worked with established relationships, and developed new types of relationships which will facilitate the delivery of the .NGO domain and related services to the NGO Community. Our discussions and outreach have included NGOs in several countries across Asia, Europe, North America, South America⁄Latin America, and Africa as well as many different segments of the NGO Community to ensure wide acceptance and adoption of our proposed gTLD domain and related services. The segments include but are not limited to agriculture, environment, arts⁄culture, charitable services, human rights, humanitarian, and advocacy for a range of issues affecting societal development.

Accountability to the NGO Community
By offering .NGO as a secure and well-managed domain of trust uniquely for eligible NGOs, PIR believes that NGOs can benefit from the Internet and our specific services as a means to safely and reliably reach out to the community and sponsors. PIR will be accountable to the NGO Community by:
• A NGO Community input process soliciting input from the community through the NGO Advisory Council drawn from the community and accepting a broad range of input to stay current on the issues of importance to the community and manage the NGO verification process;
• Creating and marketing .NGO as a distinctive place on the Internet for NGOs to differentiate and promote their organization;
• Establishing community programs to support capacity building of NGOs with technical and educational platforms;
• Enforcing registration policies that elevate the integrity of the domains in the .NGO gTLD name space, soliciting input from the NGO Community;
• Easing discovery and promotion through the creation, management and promotion of the .NGO gTLD;
• Offering registration from a proven, scalable registry platform that can ensure 100% DNS availability;
• Delivering a challenge process for the NGO Community to dispute the legitimacy of a .NGO registrant or its activity on a .NGO domain; and,
• As a community priority gTLD, PIR is committing to manage the .NGO domain with participation of the community. Failing to do that would put our registry contract in jeopardy.

PIR is in an excellent position to provide such support to the NGO Community given documented experience running a stable and trusted registry. PIR holds a track record demonstrating good intent to the global community by being a leader in activities such as implementation of anti-abuse policies, DNSSEC, active participation in numerous public interest events, etc.

gTLD	Full Legal Name	E-mail suffix	Detail
.gal	Asociación puntoGAL	puntogal.org	View

All the main organizations of the Galician cultural and linguistic community, both the major official institutions and the biggest grassroots organizations are members of the Asociación puntoGAL. The Asociación puntoGAL also has the support and endorsement of 12.563 individuals. The amount, relevance and diversity of its members allows Asociación puntoGAL to say that is the Galician linguistic and cultural community who is applying for the gTLD. As the complete list and description of the 110 members does not fit within the strict character limits of this question, please check Asociación puntoGAL’s membership at: http:⁄⁄puntogal.org⁄actualidade⁄nova.php?id=455&lg=ing

Institutions

The Real Academia Galega (RAG) is the top institution regarding Galician language. The RAG promulgates norms of grammar, spelling and vocabulary. It also promotes the language in society. The RAG is formed by some of the most prestigious Galician linguists, poets and writers. It was created more than one century ago.This institution is one of the founding members of the PuntoGAL. In fact, the main office of this candidature is located in RAG headquarters in A Coruña.
The main Galician law, Estatuto de Autonomía de Galicia, passed by Spanish Parliament, also entitles the autonomous government to “promote Galician cultural values” creating the Consello da Cultura Galega (CCG). The CCG is the institution in charge of cultural research and is the top advisory committee regarding linguistic and cultural public policies. The CCG is also a member of PuntoGAL.

The Xunta de Galicia, the Galician Autonomous Government, has been supporting the Asociación puntoGAL since 2006.

Academic

All three Galician universities (Santiago, A Coruña and Vigo) are members of Asociación puntoGAL. Moreover, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, one of the oldest in Europe, provides Asociación puntoGAL its administrative office, from which this candidature has been promoted for six years. Furthermore, the most important teachers union in the public education system (Conferencia Intersindical Galega), the main research group into innovation in education (Nova Escola Galega) and the main association of specialists who promote the normalization of Galician language are members of this candidate (Coordinadora de Traballadores⁄as de Normalización da Lingua).

Information Technologies industry
This sector participates both collectively, as employeesʹ associations, and individually, as companies who offer tools in Galician. One of the associationʹs original members is EGANET, an employers organization in which more than 70 Internet companies cooperate. For instance, the only ICANN accredited registrar located in Galicia, Dinahosting, is a member of Asociación puntoGAL. Other IT companies that participate individually are Inxenio Internet Consulting S.L, RedCoruna S.L.U. , Quobis Networks S.L., Interdix Galicia, Pexego Sistemas Informáticos and Openhost S.L. Among the members are some of the principal associations of graduates in Computer Science (Asociación de Enxeñeiros en Informática de Galicia) and in Telecommunications (Asociación de Enxeñeiros de Telecomunicacións de Galicia).

Media industry and communications
From employersʹ associations to unions, the media sector who publishes in Galician has a relevant representation in Asociación puntoGAL. Some of the main broadcasters (CRTVG, the publicly owned radio and television company, which is the most popular in the region and that only broadcasts in Galician) and newspapers in Galicia (for instance, Editorial Compostela, who publish Galicia Hoxe, an online newspaper in Galician, and El Correo Gallego, the main newspaper in Galiciaʹs capital Santiago de Compostela) are members of puntoGAL. Furthermore, the professional association of journalists (Colexio de Xornalistas de Galicia) and the main union of journalists (Sindicato de Xornalistas de Galicia) joined Asociación puntoGAL from its beginning. Among its members, Asociación puntoGAL includes publishers specially focused on IT and the Internet (Código Cero newspaper), local magazines (A Voz de Villalba for instance) and most of the council- owned local radios (EMUGA). Some of the most important print media in Galicia created the Asociación de Medios Escritos en Lingua Galega, which also participates in this candidature too.

Grassroots cultural collectives
Asociación puntoGAL will manage a gTLD for a community that largely participates in the association. This can be said because Asociación puntoGAL includes plenty of grassroots entities that promote Galician heritage and the use of the language in daily basis in many different towns of Galicia.  For instance A Mesa pola Normalización is the most popular grassroots association among all the ones working on Galician normalization. Asociación Cultural Ventiños da Ponte, Asociación Cultural PX, Aula Castelao, Centro de Estudios e Documentación Blas Espín , Asociación Cultural Komunikando.net, Asociación Cultural Arumes do Corgo, Asociación Amigos do Patrimonio de Castroverde and Centro Veciñal e Cultural de Valladares are other cultural entities that collaborate.  In adittion, there are six members who regularly organize cultural activities for the young people and women (Asociación Xuvenil PX-Ponte do Porto, Asociación Xuvenil Amencer, Asociación Xuvenil ʺXuntanza Xuvenilʺ de Valladares, Asociación O Fervedoiro and Asociación Ghandalf Xuventude de Galicia).

Diaspora
Galician history shows cultural that promotion and scientific production has depended heavily on emigrants associations. In fact, the Galician diaspora played a key role both in the renaissance of Galician literature in the 19the century and in the exile during the decades before democracy arrived in the 1970s. Nowadays, Galician diaspora associations act as a link between the emigrants and their cultural roots. As it was mentioned before, twenty of the organizations of thcounce huge Galician diaspora are members of this application, including collectives from three continents (Europe, North America and South America) and ten countries.

Professional associations
Finally, the membership and support of professional associations of activities as diverse as Psychology, Computer Science, Architecture, Dental Surgery, Industrial Engineering; companies who work in tourism and child care; associations of elderly people and of women; all these demonstrate that Asociación puntoGAL has a widespread support among all the groups of the Galician speaking community.

b) iii. Accountability mechanisms.

How would all these organizations control the correct performance of the .gal TLD? Very simple, the bylaws of the Asociación, attached in this application, state that the board of directors is democratically elected by and among the organizations who join Asociación puntoGAL. Every member has one vote.

In the last step, the accountability to Galician speaking society in general is guaranteed because both local and regional administrations (like Xunta de Galicia, the Galician Autonomous Government) , that are democratically elected, participate in Asociación puntoGAL in many ways. Sometimes directly, for instance, there are two local councils among the Asociación puntoGAL members (Rianxo and Redondela). Sometimes indirectly, for instance EMUGA, a group of council radio broadcasters which at the end of the day depend on their local government.

The accountability to the community who launched Asociación puntoGAL six years ago is guaranteed by
- the widespread and grassroots membership of the Asociación including the top cultural and academic institutions;
- Asociación PuntoGALʹs bylaws, that guarantee that the Board of Directors is elected from the members of the Association in one member one vote basis;
- and by the participation in the Asociación of dozens of official bodies whose directors depend directly or indirectly on the citizenʹs vote.