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
.immo	STARTING DOT	jwgroupe.com	View

The real estate (RE) community encompasses over 600,000 entities linked through and structured by national associations corresponding to each business segment. There is no international umbrella organization spanning the entire community. Starting Dot’s supporting associations are therefore all national organizations.

Some industry segments however are neither organized nor represented by national associations, notably:
- Real estate mortgage brokers or issuers;
- Real estate publishers (management software, information media).

Starting Dot has therefore mainly built relationships with segments of the real estate community, which are either structured by national and regional associations or organized by reliable and representative leaders.

Accordingly, Starting has received endorsements from associations representing following professions:
- Professional associations of real estate agents and property managers;
- Online Real Estate Marketplaces;
- Home developers;
- Universities;
- Software publishers.

Real estate brokers and property managers are represented by approximately 15 organizations, present in Austria, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and Switzerland. The overall population within these organizations has been estimated to be in excess of 60,000 corporations, representing an estimate of 250,000 professionals.

Seven (7) of these associations have endorsed the .immo gTLD application (as set forth in Appendix ‘App 20-1.pdf’ attached to this answer): Fédération Nationale de l’Immobilier (FNAIM), Union des Syndicats de l’Immobilier (UNIS), Union Suisse des Professionnels de l’Immobilier (USPI), Fédération Française de l’Internet Immobilier (FF2I), Bauträgerverband (BTV), Confédération Européenne de l’Immobilier (CEI), and Immobilienverband Deutschland (IVD).

Within this group, the FNAIM is the most important in terms of size (see appendix ‘App 20-1.pdf’). To become a member of the FNAIM one has to prove:
* Holding a professional card delivered by the Ministry of Home Affairs (this card is granted for 10 years to qualified candidates who either have a bachelor degree or have worked 4 to 10 years in a real estate company);
* Holding an insurance policy;
* Having registered ones business with the local Chamber of Commerce and having been granted a business registration number.
These requirements are common to all organizations endorsing the .immo gTLD application. The goal is to regroup professionals who are qualified by education, training, and⁄or experience, and thus are perfectly capable of performing professional property-related services.

The .immo gTLD has also received an endorsement from the CEI (European Confederation of Real Estate Agents), one of Europe’s largest professional organizations of RE agents, counting over 66,000 members from hundreds of cities in 14 European countries. CEI aims to establish international cooperation, to advise on issues concerning transnational real estate transactions and to influence European ruling. Accordingly, the CEI is fully representative of the RE industry in Europe, in terms size and geographical reach, and its also completely dedicated to improve standards of profession.
The German Real Estate Professional Association (IVD) has also endorsed the .immo gTLD application. The IVD was established in 2004 and is Germanyʹs largest organization of real estate agents, property managers and valuers as well as developers and facility managers. The IVD has more than 6,000 members, 80% of them are Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Managers and 20% of them are Real Estate Valuers.

The .immo gTLD application has the support of numerous online real estate marketplaces. Those Internet companies deliver a free service to the end-user but charge their clients for the display of ads and⁄or classified.
Starting Dot has received the official endorsement of SeLoger.com for the .immo gTLD application. SeLoger.com, leading operator of online portals dedicated property advertisements in France, was able, to establish long-term relations with 24,000 real estate businesses in France, which equals about 80% of the French real estate market. Founded in 1992, it has a portfolio of 2.5 million property advertisements, a reach of 3.1 million unique users per month and an annual income of over €100 million. It is today the 5th largest real estate portal in the world by revenue.

Other major real estate players in France, Italy, Germany, Austria and Switzerland have endorsed the .immo gTLD application (as documented in appendix ‘App 20-2’ here attached): LaVieImmo.com, Immonet.de, Piucase.it and Solocase.it (published by Terra Nova Editore), Homegate.ch and Immobilien.net.
ERESnet GmbH, publisher of Immobilien.net, Europe’s oldest and Austria’s number one real estate portal is also a co-investor in Starting Dot’s application for the .immo gTLD. Starting Dot and ERESnet have signed an agreement anticipating their joint ownership and management of the .immo gTLD following ICANN delegation, as documented in Appendix 48-4 ‘Bond Agreement between Starting Dot and ERESnet’.

The .immo gTLD application is also backed by other major groups of real estate professionals:
- Government Agencies, which play a major role in the development of new legislation governing the real estate industry. Starting Dot’s endorsement from the French Ministry for Ecology, Sustainable Development, Transports and Housing for its .immo gTLD application, is therefore of great value;
- Real estate operators: Even though the real estate market is fragmented, there are a few big integrated operators, like Nexity, ImmoFinanz and Tagerim, which all have endorsed the .immo application. These organizations play a major role in the real estate community as both, opinion leaders and trendsetters. Nexity Group is considered one of the three leading real estate companies in Europe.
- Universities: Preventing non-qualified persons from performing property-related functions, is very important. Many top Universities have therefore opened specific academic programs dedicated to property professions, notably the University of Applied Sciences Vienna (FH Wien) and the Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna).
- CRM and Management software publishers: Property professionals rely on different software to manage their businesses. Accordingly a new generation of software publishers has emerged these last 10 years. Two of them, Wazzup (Netherlands) and Poliris (France) have endorsed the .immo gTLD application.
Mr. Godefroy Jordan, founder a,d CEO of Starting Dot is also strongly involved in the real estate community. For more than 10 years, he has either worked as a senior executive for or has been a shareholder of Europe’s top online real estate portals (e.g. Logic-Immo.com, Immostreet.fr, Realcity.cz, Logic-Immo.ch).

All organizations backing the .immo gTLD application share Starting Dot’s goals:
- Enforce real estate legislations on .immo domain name registrants;
- Improve quality of online services related to real estate;
- Protect online consumers and thereby improve consumer trust in property professionals.

These goals will be achieved through the .immo gTLD’s eligibility policies, which have been defined in collaboration with the real estate community.

The Policy Advisory Committee will lead representation and community input for the .immo gTLD. When fully constituted, the Policy Advisory Committee will be a 12-person committee made up of organizations that have endorsed the .immo gTLD application.

The real estate community will be strongly involved in the management of the .immo gTLD, as the Policy Advisory Committee will serve as a channel for the community to provide Starting Dot input in to how policies have been implemented, the experience of registrants with these policies, the effectiveness of procedures and opportunities to improve support and services.