NCUC

[edit] Non-Commercial Users Constituency

The Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) is the one GNSO section that promotes civil society aspects.

It assembles about 40 different NGOs from all parts of the world. NCUC develops policies for domain names that promote noncommercial activity, it deals with data protection issues like Whois and discusses many other issues. Three members of the GNSO names council are NCUC delegates, and NCUC also participates actively in the GNSO's different working groups. Discussions mainly take place on its mailing list or during ICANN meetings. NCUC spends the biggest part of its budget on sending members to ICANN meetings. The organisational structure of NCUC is simple: It has a chair, a policy comittee formed by the GNSO representatives, and an executive comittee that mainly deals with organisational matters. NCUC is sponsored on large parts by the public interest registry (PIR), but it also collects membership fees and has other sponsors.

NCUC is different from ALAC or the Nominating Committee, which have similar intentions but play a broader yet sometimes more indirect part in ICANN. Some say that NCUC is more result orientated, too. Historically, NCUC was created together with ICANN, first called "Noncommercial domain name holders constituency", NCDNHC.

Applying to join NCUC is easy. NCUC is open to noncommercial organisations that are involved in human rights, scientific research, public policy advocacy, community networking, development, education, etc.

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