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. Amber Sterling serves as Interim Chairman of NPOC.

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 (NOIF) to Form a New GNSO Constituency and a formal Petition/Charter. NPOC submitted submitted its NOIF on June 15, 2010 followed by its Petition?Charter on November 2, 2010 which was revised on December 7, 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. The Charter of NPOC was approved by ICANN on June 24, 2011 and became an official GNSO constituency.

Structure

NPOC is composed of Executive, Membership, Policy and Communications Committees. The constituency will also elect a Chairman, Vice Chairman, Secretariat and Committee Chairs. The officers and members of each committee shall be elected by the constituency membership with term limitations. Each term will last a year and any elected officer cannot serve more than more than five years within a ten years period. The rules and responsibilities of the elected officers are defined in the NPOC Charter.

Members

The current members of NPOC include:

• ALSAC / St. Jude Children's Research Hospital - United States
• American Council on Education (ACE) - United States
• American Red Cross (ARC) - United States
• Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) - United States
• Australian Red Cross Society - Australia
• Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio Communication (BNNRC) - Bangladesh
• Centre for Science and Media Studies - India
• Church of God in Christ, Inc. - United States
• Corporacion Makia Asesoria Internacional - Colombia
• Fundacion Chasquinet - Ecuador
• Fundacion Omar Dengo - Costa Rica
• Goodwill Industries International - United States
• Human Rights Campaign - United States
• IICD - The Netherlands
• International Baccalaureate Organization - Switzerland
• International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Socieites (IRC) - Switzerland
• March of Dimes - United States
• St. John Ambulance - United Kingdom
• The Association of NGOs (TANGO) - The Gambia
• Water Environment Research Foundation (WERF) - United States
• World Wildlife Fund (WWF) - United States
• YMCA of The Gambia - The Gambia
• YMCA of the USA - United States

Comments on ICANN Issues

Since its establishment, NPOC had been active in sharing comments and recommendations on different ICANN issues particularly regarding the new gTLD program set to start on January 12, 2012. The organization submitted its comments during the drafting of the Applicant Guidebook and its most recent comments were submitted on May 15, 2011 by Amber Sterling, chairman of the constituency. Its comments include the following:

• ICANN Board should provide price options for non-profit organizations for new gTLD applications based on criteria.
• Suggested that the ICANN Board implement initial evaluation to weight the costs and benefits of proposed new gTLDs to the public.
• NPOC praised the ICANN Board's initiative in adding questions related to the intent that needs to be answered by applicants during the application process. In connection to this, NPOC suggested to grade the answers to those questions as part of the review of applications.
• NPOC suggested to further define the role of Independent Objector (IO) in connection with IO selection, IO support, IO application review

and IP decision if it is necessary to object or not.

• Recommended that marks not protected by court or statute should be submitted to the Trademark Clearinghouse periodically (3 years) and must be a requirement during the Sunrise period. In addition, the expansion of Trademark claims and Sunrise period services was also recommended by the constituency as well as the reduction of Clearinghouse filing fees for non-profit organization.
• Recommended that the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) for non-profit organization and to reduce the requirements for the limited loser pays to complaints for 8 or more domain names in dispute from the current 26 domain names in dispute.

NPOC's compilation of comments on the different DNS Policy Issues of ICANN can be found here

Senate Hearing Testimony Regarding New gTLD Expansion

On December 8, 2011, Angela Williams, General Counsel of YMCA of the USA testified during hearing conducted by the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation regarding the ICANN's new gTLD expansion program. Williams represented NPOC and testified that new gTLD program "compromises use of the internet by increasing the risk of fraud, cybersquatting, and trademark infringement and by significantly escalating the cost to protect against such unlawful activities." She requested the Senate committee and all parties involved to further evaluate the program with the non-profit organizations in mind.