Generic Names Supporting Organization

The Generic Names Supporting Organization is the constituency within ICANN that develops policies for gTLDs.

Overview

The main objective of GNSO is to keep the gTLDs operating in a fair and orderly manner across the Internet, while promoting innovation and competition. Some examples of the types of issues that the GNSO face are:

• During the registration of a domain name, what type of services must the registrar provide?
• If the registrant forgets to renew the domain name, and lets it to expires, how can the domain name be recovered?
• What happens if someone registers a domain name that is very similar to another domain name?

Membership

The GNSO Council consists of 22 members, which come from a variety of different regions and represent different Stakeholder Groups. Stephane Van Gelder is it's current chair.

Members Include:

GNSO Development Process

The GNSO is the primary engine within the ICANN community for developing, recommending changes, and making modifications to generic top-level domain policies. The GNSO aims to identify ways to improve the inclusiveness and representativeness of its work while increasing its effectiveness and efficiency.

An important GNSO improvement was the development of recommendations for the new GNSO policy development process. The ICANN Board launched in June, 2008 a set of recommendations for improving the effectiveness of the GNSO. These recommendations were related to GNSO activities, operations and structure.

GNSO Improvements

The main areas of GNSO improvements which were approved by the Board, and are being implemented by the GNSO, are classified into five main categories:

1. The creation of a Working Group Model
2. Revising the PDP (Policy Development process)
3. The restructuring of GNSO Council
4. Communication improvement and a better coordination between ICANN structures
5. Improving constituency procedures

ICANN Supporting Organizations

Apart from GNSO, there are other SO's (supporting organizations) and advisory committees which help ICANN to fulfill its objectives. They include:

• Address Supporting Organization (ASO)
• Country Code Domain Name Supporting Organization (ccNSO)
• At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC)
• Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC)

Generic Names Supporting Organization. Develops and recommends to the Board substantive policies relating to generic top-level domains and other responsibilities set forth in the Bylaws (ICANN Bylaws).

Address Supporting Organization. Advises the Board with respect to policy issues relating to the operation, assignment, and management of Internet addresses (ICANN Bylaws).

Country Code Names Supporting Organization. Develops and recommends to the Board global policies relating to country-code top-level domains (ICANN Bylaws).

At-Large Advisory Committee. Considers and provides advice on the activities of ICANN related to the interests of individual Internet users (ICANN Bylaws). Not to be confused with the Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group.

Governmental Advisory Committee. Considers and provides advice on the activities of ICANN as they relate to concerns of governments, particularly matters where there may be an interaction between ICANN's policies and various laws and international agreements or where they may affect public policy issues (ICANN Bylaws).