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20(b) Explain the applicant's relationship to the community identified in 20(a)

gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.NGOPublic Interest Registrypir.orgView
PIR is a NGO, and thereby part of the NGO Community. PIR as a NGO has extensive gTLD management experience via the .ORG gTLD. PIR a supporting organization to the Internet Society (ISOC) and is committed to supporting the Internet Society’s (ISOC) mission stated below.

History of PIR’s Relationship to the NGO Community
In January 2003, PIR, assumed responsibility for operating .ORG and maintaining the authoritative database of all .ORG domains.

Created in 1984, .ORG is one of the Internetʹs original seven top-level domains (TLDs), along with .com, .net, etc. Although it is ʺopenʺ and ʺunrestrictedʺ, .ORG has been the domain of choice for organizations dedicated to serving the public interest. The high regard of these well-intentioned organizations was soon conferred to this domain, and today .ORG is considered around the world to be the domain of trust.

Public Interest Registry’s (PIR) primary activity is to maintain the .ORG domain registry as the exemplary top level domain (TLD) registry service, by advocating for higher standards of Internet security, safety and reliability. PIR’s mission is to facilitate the effective use of a global Internet among non-commercial and other Internet users worldwide. In its relationship with the ISOC, (reference Evaluation Questions #9a and #9b), PIR is committed to supporting ISOC’s goals of encouraging the evolution of the Internet as research, education and communication infrastructure equally accessible to the global non-commercial, NGO and nonprofit community. PIR’s activities also include funding educational programs focused on expanding the knowledge and ability of non-commercial, NGO and nonprofit organizations located in technologically deprived areas of the world to more efficiently and effectively use the Internet as a tool to better accomplish their important mission.

The 2003 transition of .ORG from the previous operator to PIR was the largest transfer in Internet history. More than 2.6 million domains were transferred in about a day, without negatively impacting any .ORG registrant or website.

Since 2003, PIR has been connected with NGOs through our management of .ORG, and recently in preparation for our pursuit of the .NGO gTLD domain, we have worked closely with the NGO Community to develop the requirements and specification for the proposed .NGO gTLD.

Current Relationship to the NGO Community
PIR is a strong supporter of NGOs in both a direct role as manager of the .ORG gTLD and through other efforts, including:
• A ʺStrategic and Sponsoring Partnerʺ of NTEN, the Non-Profit Technology Network of 10,000 members and over 30,000 participants in the community, covering 126 countries. NTEN aspires to a world where all nonprofit organizations use technology skillfully and confidently to meet community needs and fulfill their missions.
• Making financial contributions to various organizations, such as the NCUC (Non Commercial Constituency of ICANN) and Centr. For NCUC, annual donations have been in the $5,000 to $15,000 range every year since PIR assumed operations of the .ORG registry.
• In December 2005, PIR sponsored a symposium at the Nelson Mandela Center in Cape Town, South Africa bringing in various Internet leaders in Africa to discuss the needs of the Internet in Africa.
• In response to Hurricane Katrina, in New Orleans, Louisiana, PIR donated $1 for every new create for a limited time. The final donation was over $100,000 to the Red Cross.
• In response to JapanʹsTsunami disaster, a 3 month program was rolled out to waive renewal fees for Japanese domain name holders, in order to help those affected and unable to renew their .ORG domains.

Within the community, there is a wide appreciation of PIR’s role as an advocate of “do good” for the Internet at large, and in many countries around the world there is a general perception that .ORG domains are more trusted than other domains. At the time of application submission, PIR manages nearly 10 million .ORG domains, and is seen to do so in an exemplary way. We are very happy to be judged on this reputation.

PIR has over 500 letters of support from the NGO Community endorsing its application for .NGO. PIR will continue outreach to the community and anticipates receipt of additional support letters from NGOs throughout the ICANN application evaluation process. Specific recognition of PIR’s efforts to support the nonprofit community includes:
• “As a not-for-profit corporation, we believe that being part of the .org domain has done much to reinforce MITRE’s identity as an organization chartered to work in the public interest. [Thanks to PIR’s] continuing work to enhance the .org domain.ʺ - Al Grasso, President and CEO, The MITRE Corporation (the first .ORG registrant).
• “We recognize and applaud PIRʹs long-standing commitment to the non-profit community since taking over the management of .ORG.” - Lisa Vogt, APR, Director of Marketing & Communications, SOS Children’s Villages – USA.

PIR has conducted outreach, worked with established relationships, and developed new types of relationships which will facilitate the delivery of the .NGO domain and related services to the NGO Community. Our discussions and outreach have included NGOs in several countries across Asia, Europe, North America, South America⁄Latin America, and Africa as well as many different segments of the NGO Community to ensure wide acceptance and adoption of our proposed gTLD domain and related services. The segments include but are not limited to agriculture, environment, arts⁄culture, charitable services, human rights, humanitarian, and advocacy for a range of issues affecting societal development.

Accountability to the NGO Community
By offering .NGO as a secure and well-managed domain of trust uniquely for eligible NGOs, PIR believes that NGOs can benefit from the Internet and our specific services as a means to safely and reliably reach out to the community and sponsors. PIR will be accountable to the NGO Community by:
• A NGO Community input process soliciting input from the community through the NGO Advisory Council drawn from the community and accepting a broad range of input to stay current on the issues of importance to the community and manage the NGO verification process;
• Creating and marketing .NGO as a distinctive place on the Internet for NGOs to differentiate and promote their organization;
• Establishing community programs to support capacity building of NGOs with technical and educational platforms;
• Enforcing registration policies that elevate the integrity of the domains in the .NGO gTLD name space, soliciting input from the NGO Community;
• Easing discovery and promotion through the creation, management and promotion of the .NGO gTLD;
• Offering registration from a proven, scalable registry platform that can ensure 100% DNS availability;
• Delivering a challenge process for the NGO Community to dispute the legitimacy of a .NGO registrant or its activity on a .NGO domain; and,
• As a community priority gTLD, PIR is committing to manage the .NGO domain with participation of the community. Failing to do that would put our registry contract in jeopardy.

PIR is in an excellent position to provide such support to the NGO Community given documented experience running a stable and trusted registry. PIR holds a track record demonstrating good intent to the global community by being a leader in activities such as implementation of anti-abuse policies, DNSSEC, active participation in numerous public interest events, etc.
gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.русRusnames Limitedgmail.comView
RusNames is incorporated in Russia, the nation with the largest population (45% of the global total) of Russian Cyrillic speakers. Modern-day Russia can trace its history back to the Kievan Rus in the 9th Century. This places RusNames in the center--both in terms of geography and population size--of the community. It has a rich understanding of the community and what connects it across the globe.

RusNames has unparalleled experience working toward ways to convey Russian Cyrillic language to Internet users. The team behind RusNames also has extensive experience with ICANN, making it uniquely equipped to connect the community across borders and regions via Internet sites using the .РУС gTLD.

The team behind RusNames had helped author articles on Russian Cyrillic domain names in various publications around the world.
RusNames is supported by several community organization representing both counties where Russian Cyrillic is the official language as well as part of the diaspora.

• Relations to the community and its constituent parts⁄groups.

As stated above, RusNames operates in the heart of the community as defined both by geography and population. But as this application demonstrates, it has a clear understanding of the larger community that would be served by .РУС, the spread over more than a millennia of the Rus people and the Cyrillic alphabet.

• Accountability mechanisms of applicant to the community.

RusNames will oversee the formation of a .РУС Policy Advisory Board populated by members of the .РУС gTLD community. This Board would serve as a conduit for the community to weigh in on any policy matters that impact the operation of the gTLD. Our initial thinking is that this first board will be made up of representatives of organizations who have provided their support to the applications of the .РУС gTLD.


RusNames Limited (RusNames) has pioneered the introduction of Cyrillic text on the Internet, a daunting but critical task. The team behind RusNames has blazed a trail in working toward Cyrillic domain names for more than ten years. No entity is better suited to manage a .РУС gTLD, nor more dedicated to providing new online tools and services to facilitate the unification of the .РУС community online. The .РУС gTLD will increasingly open up the vast resources of the Internet and its interconnectedness to this community, while stimulating the introduction of more information and resources in the Cyrillic language online.

ICANN now is well-positioned to facilitate Cyrillic-based domain names due to the labor and dedication of RusNamesʹ participation in ICANN activities. We have been attending ICANN meetings since 2003, and are a Registrar Constituency active Member. We bring to the .РУС gTLD experience in launching Cyrillic text with existing ASCII gTLDs, through partners such as Afilias, VeriSign, and Neustar. The company is engaged in an advisory capacity with Russian industry and government leaders.

Two RusNames leaders have labored for years in anticipation of ICANNʹs eventual introduction of Cyrillic TLDs. Alexei Sozonov and Sergey Sharikov bring to .РУС extensive experience in Russian Cyrillic linguistics. Over the last few years they have coordinated a Cyrillic language working group with countries using the Cyrillic alphabet, namely Russia and Ukraine. Sozonov and Sharikov have also given presentations on their work in linguistics and the promotion of the cultural significance of the Cyrillic alphabet across the .РУС community before international organizations, including ICANN and the ITU. Sharikov contributed to RusNamesʹ development of Cyrillic script language tables (RFC-5992, http:⁄⁄tools.ietf.org⁄html⁄rfc5992).

We highlight some of the ways RusNames has paved the way for ICANNʹs introduction of the .РУС gTLD below:

Cyrillic Script Working Group

As part of the Multilingual Internet Names Consortium (MINC), in November 2002 Sozonov and Sharikov founded the Cyrillic Script Working Group (CYINC), and have served as its chair. MINC is a non-profit, non-governmental organization advocating for a multilingual Internet with multilingual domain names. Formed in 2000, it includes representatives from across industry, academia, and government. Through this Group, in 2003 they developed a Cyrillic language IDN Table, the earliest global IDN table.

Cyrillic Language Internet Names Consortium

The Cyrillic script working group mentioned above (CYINC) later evolved into the Cyrillic Languages Internet Names Consortium (CyrLINC) under leadership of Sozonov and Sharikov. The organizationsʹ goals are to coordinate parties working across countries and regions in which the Cyrillic script is used, so that Cyrillic can be part of a multilingual Internet name system.


GNSO Internationalized Domain Names Working Group or IDN Expert Group

Sharikov and Sozonov engaged directly with this significant IDN-related ICANN Working Group. Over a four-month period ending in 2007, Sharikov and Sozonov participated in policy discussions regarding new TLDs as the only representatives of Russian Cyrillic concerns. The Working Group Chair was Ram Mohan, assisted by ICANNʹs Olof Nordling, Director, Services Relations and Branch Manager, Brussels Office; and Maria Farrell, currently a Committee member of the 2011 & 2012 Nominating Committee.

The Outcomes Report is here: http:⁄⁄gnso.icann.org⁄drafts⁄idn-wg-fr-22mar07.htm

GNSO Policy Process Steering Committee
RusNames has since 2008 been working with the GNSO Policy Process Steering Committee (PPSC). Sharikov and Sozonov have promoted policies and steering processes for future development of IDN Russian Cyrillic TLDs, with the Working Group-Work Team (WG-WT). The WG-WT is responsible for making recommendations concerning processes and methods involved for a new WG model, including suggestions for transition to a new model. As has been the case in other Working Groups, we were the only representatives looking out for Russian Cyrillic concerns.
GNSO Working Group Policy Steering Committee (an outgrowth of the GNSO Policy Process Steering Committee above)
RusNames promoted before this committee ideas on how policy regarding the Russian language would be handled, working with ICANN GNSO technical consultant Ken Bour; and IPC Officer J. Scott Evans.
Cyrillic Case Study Team
ICANN staff have assisted study teams expected to play a crucial role in the identification of solutions regarding the delegation of IDN variant TLDs. Two RusNames representatives have worked with the Cyrillic Case Study Team since ICANN announced it on April 20, 2011, namely Sozonov (as coordinator and chairman) and Sharikov (as expert). Among six case study teams, consisting of 66 experts from 29 countries and territories, Sozonov and Sharikov guided the Cyrillic Case Study Team with assistance from Patrick Jones, ICANN Senior Manager of Continuity & Risk Management. A report was produced by RusNameʹs Sozonov.
IDN Variant TLDs Issues Project
In an ongoing capacity, Sozonov is a participant in the IDN Variant TLDs Issues Project, which seeks to determine how variants may be properly delegated in the DNS Root Zone. Cyrillic is one of the six common scripts being examined in the project. Sozonov is working with ICANN staff members Kurt Pritz, Senior Vice President for Stakeholder Relations; Francisco Arias, Registry Technical Liaison; and Kim Davies, Manager, Root Zone services.