| 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 | | .ECO | Big Room Inc. | doteco.org | View |
RELATIONS TO COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS
All the major international membership organizations (IUCN, WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth), the biggest global business and environment organizations (World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), Green Economy Coalition), the largest international Community alliances (350.org, TckTckTck) and the key global environmental reporting standards (Global Reporting Initiative, Carbon Disclosure Project) support the creation of .ECO as a Community TLD. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has been an observer to the .ECO community process since 2010.
As the world’s largest and longest established organizations and alliances, these institutions represent over 190 countries, 1,000 entities, and more than 10 million individual members.
Organizations supporting the .ECO community-led approach:
Intergovernmental:
UN Environment Programme, UN Global Compact
International:
350.org, Amazon Watch, ANPED, BirdLife International, B Lab, Carbon Disclosure Project, Care2, Conservation International, DEKRA, Fauna & Flora International, Friends of the Earth International, Global Campaign for Climate Action (TckTckTck), Global Environmental Institute, Global Footprint Network, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Green Belt Movement International, Green Cross International, Green Economy Coalition, GreenTV, Greenpeace, Greenseal, International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, International Institute for Sustainable Development, IPAM Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia, ISEAL, IUCN, Ocean Conservancy, People 4 Earth, Rainforest Action Network, Rare Conservation, UL Environment, UNEP⁄Wuppertal Institute Collaborating Centre, Verite, WBCSD, Wildlife Friendly Enterprise Network, WWF
National:
Akatu Institute, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, chinadialogue, David Suzuki Foundation, Development Alternatives, Dogwood Initiative, Ecojustice, Ecotrust Australia, Ecotrust Canada, Ecotrust US, Friends of Nature, Friends of the Earth Canada, Green America, Institute for Public and Environmental Affairs, Instituto Ethos, Pembina Institute, Project Dirt, Smart Approved Watermark, The Big Wild, YPB ⁄ LEAD Indonesia
The application explicitly addresses members active at the international level, while national-level members are implicitly addressed due to their more limited focus.
Support of .ECO continues to grow and will extend into the gTLD application review period. A current list of supporters can be found at www.doteco.org.
RELATIONS TO THE COMMUNITY AND ITS CONSTITUENT PARTS
Dot ECO Global Community Organization
Consistent with the Community’s history of organizing alliances around issues, leading members of the Community established the Dot ECO Global Community Organization (the Organization), an independent not-for-profit organization, as the representative membership institution for on-going .ECO policy development.
The Organization’s founding board comprises individuals from not-for-profit organizations involved in .ECO policy development since 2009 via the .ECO Community Council, and includes members from Brazil, France, India, Switzerland, the UK, and the US. The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), founded in 1990 as a non-partisan charitable organization focused on sustainable development, acts as the secretariat for the Organization.
The 13 .ECO Community Council member organizations form the inaugural Community Council of the Organization to provide policy advice to the board: WWF International (Co-chair); Akatu Institute (Co-chair); B Lab; Conservation International; David Suzuki Foundation; Development Alternatives; Green Belt Movement International; Green Cross International; GreenTV; Greenpeace International; The ISEAL Alliance; UL Environment, and Verite. UNEP has been an observer to the Council since 2010 and in March 2012, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs Division for Sustainable Development indicated its interest to act as an observer.
The Organization has signed a contract for Big Room, a certified B Corporation, to apply for and act as the Registry operator for the .ECO Community TLD.
Information about the Organization background, establishment, governance and contract with Big Room is attached in 20f (20f-ECO-community-organization.pdf).
In line with the Community’s principles, Big Room’s founders, board members, investors, advisors, and observers have decades of combined environmental experience. The company is funded by a diverse group of mission-aligned leading environmental and social investors, including lead investor Working Enterprises, which has committed to donating its proceeds from .ECO to charity.
Big Room’s core business is in enhancing accountability in the green marketplace. Since 2008 it has operated Ecolabel Index (ecolabelindex.com), the authoritative global directory of environmental certifications. The site enables transparency and disclosure in the certification industry. A recognized authority on certification systems in green purchasing and supply chains, Big Room has provided advisory services to the General Services Administration of the US government, UNEP, the Sustainability Consortium, the Green Products Roundtable, and others.
Big Room was founded by Trevor Bowden, Jacob Malthouse and Dr. Anastasia O’Rourke. Trevor and Jacob previously worked at UNEP, where they launched the UN Principles for Responsible Investment. Trevor has also consulted to international banks on environmental risk. Jacob was previously Liaison to the Caribbean and Canada at ICANN. Anastasia is a leading environmental researcher, authoring over 20 reports, articles and whitepapers and has worked with INSEAD Business School, Yale University, The Carbon Trust, and the City of Sydney.
The co-founders also have environmental academic expertise: Trevor holds an MSc in Public Understanding of Environmental Change, University College London and a Diploma in Environmental Studies, McGill University; Jacob has a BA in Geography and Economics, University of Victoria; and, Anastasia holds a PhD, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and an MSc in Environmental Management and Policy, Lund University.
Big Room’s Advisory Board members include: Ashok Khosla, President, IUCN; James Gustave Speth, former Dean, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies; William Nitze, former Assistant Administrator International Activities, US Environmental Protection Agency; and, Bill Knight, founding Commissioner, Financial Consumer Agency of Canada.
ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISMS TO THE COMMUNITY
Accountability is a core principle of the .ECO Community TLD as evidenced by the multi-stakeholder process undertaken (see 20c) to develop community-driven principles and policies and to establish an independent governance structure for Community oversight of .ECO.
The Accountability Policy that forms part of the .ECO Policy Consensus includes guidelines to ensure registrants comply with the .ECO purpose and principles, and that information provided in .ECO-profiles is trustworthy and accurate. The Registry will conduct ‘spot-checks’ by reviewing a percentage of .ECO-profiles to ensure compliance.
Under the Organization’s contract with Big Room, the parties have established mutual non-voting observer board seats and defined the specific roles and responsibilities with regard to managing the .ECO Community TLD according to the .ECO Policy Consensus.
Community members can participate directly in the governance of .ECO through the Organization. Membership is free and open to all members of the Community. Entity members may apply to become voting members after two years of membership.
Big Room is committed to open, transparent multi-stakeholder engagement. It reports annually on its own environmental, social and economic impacts and requires suppliers to adopt eco-practices.