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
.tatar	Limited Liability Company ʺCoordination Center of Regional Domain of Tatarstan Republicʺ	cctld.ru	View

The Coordination Center for the Regional Domain for the Republic of Tatarstan, LLC (hereinafter referred to as the Applicant) is a newly established legal entity to operate the applied-for gTLD. Its mission and objectives have earned support from leading civil society organizations in the Republic of Tatarstan and ethnic cultural associations beyond the Republic’s borders.

More specifically, the concept of the new gTLD for the Tatar people was endorsed by a number of local organizations and a profile public agency, as follows:

The Chamber of Commerce of the Republic of Tatarstan: a non-for –profit public association uniting over 1,200 local corporations and having branches throughout the Republic.
While its mission is, “To form an independent and competent voice of businessmen of the Republic of Tatarstan”, its objectives, comprise, inter alia:
-Expressing and protecting interests of its members before government and local self-government;
-Spread civilized principles of doing business; and
-Pursue a policy of social responsibility of businesses.
The Chamber of Commerce thus forms a major platform for consolidation, collaboration and representation of a broad and vibrant business community of the Republic of Tatarstan.

The World Congress of the Tatars is a non-profit NGO whose major mission is to unite Tatars scattered across the world and engage them in an active dialogue and interaction for the benefit of the Tatar people, culture, language and cement and promote the Tatar identity in Russia and overseas. To this end, the Congress supports sports and culture activities, language, ethnic, etc. academic research, and public initiatives concerning Tatars.
The Congress pays a specific attention to preservation of the Tatar ethos whose embodiment is the cohort of the Tatars who have become known in the world thanks to their outstanding achievements.
The Congress’s leadership is formed by prominent scions of the Tatar people, and it enjoys a great grassroot- level support both in the Republic of Tatarstan, across Russia, and overseas.
The Tatarstan Academy of Sciences specifies the canons of scientific creativity, promotes integrity, openness, continuity, and rigorous standards of academic research.

An non-for-profit NGO incorporated as public association, the Academy has become the leader of the scientific community of the Republic and its operation is aimed at bolstering and efficient use of the Republic’s scientific and technological capacities in order to effectively tackle urgent challenges in the sphere of economy, science, education, culture and create favorable conditions for the harmonious development of all the residents of the Republic.

The Ministry of Informatization and Communications of the Republic of Tatarstan is an executive government agency which pursues the public informatization and communications policies, interacts, within the limits of its mandate, with corporations, institutions and organizations, regardless of their legal form and departmental attribution, engaged in the profile activities.
The Ministry has long found itself in the forefront of the RT Government’s strive for excellence in IT, e-government, expansion of the private sector, and giving boost to the residents’ living standards.
The Ministry has launched a number of public initiatives in the respective sphere, including creation of an IT park, the Center for Information Technologies, a string of training programs for its staff both in Russia and overseas.
As a local regulator, the Ministry’s major task is to promote deployment in the Republic cutting-edge communications solutions and the most advanced standards and ensure conditions most conducive to advancement of competition, on an equal basis, between all telecom operators and ISP operating in the Republic.

In pursuit of its specific mission, no wonder the Applicant’s founders became the leading local corporations in the ICT and Internet sector: the IT Park and the state unitary enterprise of the Republic of Tatarstan “Centre of information technologies of the Republic of Tatarstan”.

The IT-park is one of the Republic’s leading Hi-Tech centers, home to a cutting-edge regional data center, business incubator for ICT start-ups and 31 resident ICT companies.
The IT-park’s operations are closely integrated with the Republic’s university cluster, thus forming a robust R&D and commercialization nexus.

The public corporation “Centre of information technologies of the Republic of Tatarstan” is a solution provider in the context of implementation of large-scale public ICT projects for the benefit of the regional agencies and municipal self-government bodies.
The interplay of civil -society, business and government actors has resulted in the Applicant being a plexus of a coordinated initiative aiming at a consistent, sustained advancement of the Internet in the Republic, encouragement of the rise of new users and bolstering their Internet related skills and competencies by promoting the use of the applied-for gTLD as a major means of IP addressing in the Tatar language.

The above stakeholders believe that the Applicant will strive to operate in a manner which ensures maximum transparency and accountability before themselves. To this end, it is envisaged to establish an Advisory Council to oversee the Applicant’s performance and enforce a due level of accountability, with operational results being made available both to the Founders, the Government and the people of the Republic of Tatarstan. As well, the Advisory Council will be mandated to produce policy advice and recommendations to ensure a proper operation of the new gTLD for the benefit of the Tatar community worldwide and further enrichment and diversification of the global Internet.