NPOC
The Not-for- Profit Operational Concerns Constituency (NPOC) is a new constituency within the Generic Names Supporting Organization's under the Non-Commercial Stake Holders Group (NCSG) representing the interest of domain name registrants who belong to non profit or non-government organizations. NPOC participates within the ICANN community's discussions on policy issues about the internet and Domain Name System (DNS) that has a significant impact on its operations in delivering services that are beneficial to communities. It was approved by the ICANN Board on June 24, 2011.[1]
Background
The ICANN Board made recommendations on how to improve the operations and structure of the GNSO. One of its recommendations is the development of new GNSO constituencies in accordance with Article X, Section 5(4) of the ICANN Bylaws. Since there is no specific guidelines stipulated in the ICANN Bylaws on how the community could file a petition for a new constituency, the ICANN Staff helped the ICANN community in formulating procedures in accordance with principles of the Bylaws as directed by the ICANN Board. On October 2008, two procedures were formulated and adopted by the internet community such as the submission of Notice of Intent to Form a New GNSO Constituency and a formal Petition/Charter. The NPOC submitted the requirements on November 2, 2010. A public comment regarding NPOC's intention to become part of the new GNSO Constituency was conducted by the staff on December 1, 2010 until January 30, 2011.[2] The Charter of NPOC was approved by ICANN on June 24, 2011 and became an official GNSO constituency.[3]