NCUC

The Non-commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) is a member of the Non-commercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG) of the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) constituted by Article XX, Section of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers Bylaws. It's main objective is to represent the interests and positions of individuals or civil society involved in non-commercial activities such as education, promotion of arts, religion, children's welfare, scientific research among others using internet as a global communication method.

Organizational Structure

The Non-Commercial Users Constituency is composed of:

• Membership which consist of entities primarily engaged in non-profit/non-commercial activities and exclusive owner of at least one domain name whose owner is verifiable in the Whois data base.
• Executive Committee is responsible in administering the different activities of the Constituency and it is headed by its chairman who will be elected yearly. It is also consist of a Secretary-Treasurer and one Representative from every geographical region.
• Policy Committee is tasked to determine and represent the positions of the Constituency on issues related to domain names, ICANN policy and procedures of the GNSO, ICANN policy committees, working groups, advisory committees including policy forums. The Policy Committee is co-chaired by Constituency Representatives to the GNSO Council who will be elected for two-years term. The term of each co-chair will be terminated on an odd number and even number year to maintain the continuity of the Council.

Groups

The Non Commercial Users Constituency is composed of different groups such as the GNSO Operations Team, Interest-Group-Formation: Librarians,Scientific, Technical and Academic Experts,Post-Expiration Domain Name Drafting Team, Fund Raising Committee,Operations Steering Committee, Consumer Rights and many other groups.

NCUC Officers

The officers of the Non Commercial Users Constituency include:

Elected Officers

• NCUC Chair: Konstantinos Komaitis, Europe
• Executive Committee Africa, Alex Gakuru
• Executive Committee Asia, David Cake
• Executive Committee Europe, Cedric Laurant
• Executive Committee North America, Brenden Kuerbis
• Executive Committee South America, Carlos Affonso de Souza
• Nominating Committee Representative-Europe, Maria Farrell

Executive Committee

• Avri Doria, Chair
• Rosemary Sinclair Vice-chair
• Mohammed Rafik Dammak
• Debra Hughes
• Milton Mueller

Comments on ICANN Policy Issues

The NCUC like any other Constituencies is active in sharing its comments and recommendations to different ICANN Policy Issues. On June 12n 2007, NCUC submitted its statement regarding the GNSO New TLD Committee’s Draft Final Report On The Introduction of New Generic Top Level Domains (gTLD) and opined that the draft report consist of flaws and it is a "recipe for irregularity, discretion and uncertainty in the new domain name space." The Constituency argued that the introduction of morally acceptable and not contrary to public order as a string criteria is troubling and expressed its strong opposition to this proposal and pointed that it is beyond ICANN's technical mandate. NCUC also rejects the expansion of the role of ICANN Staff and outside expert panels in evaluating the criteria that are non technical, financial or operational. The Constituency recommended that the role of ICANN Staff should be limited only in identifying if a domain name applicant met the operational technical and financial requirements objectively and should not evaluate on the basis of morality or other public policy objectives.Furthermore NCUC also opposed the "substantial opposition" criteria for rejecting a domain name because it is a bad policy for the public and for ICANN. The Constituency argued that the substantial opposition criteria is incompatible with the internationally recognized Freedom of Expression guarantees.