Submitted to ICANN by Marty Burack, burack@isoc.org, April 26, 1999.
Posted April 29, 1999 (Note:  Revised version posted May 5, 1999)

APRIL 26, 1999

The Internet Society has established a web site for organizations that wish to participate in the constituency of non-commercial domain name holders. As of April 26, 1999, the following organizations have asked to be included in the web site maintained at: http://www.isoc.org/internet/issues/dns/990409.shtml

List of organizations:
 

Asociacion de Usuarios de Internet (AUI)	<http://www.glocom.AUI.es>
Assumption University of Thailand	<http://www.au.ac.th/>
domini-ct.org/TLD for Catalonia	<http://www.domini-ct.org>
EDUCAUSE	<http://www.educause.edu/>
European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI)	<http://www.etsi.org>
Fundació Catalana per a la Recerca	<http://www.fcr.es>
GLOCOM	<http://www.glocom.ac.jp>
International Council for Computer Communication (ICCC)	<http://www.icccgovernors.org/>
Internet Association of Japan	<http://www.iaj.or.jp/>
IEEE Computer Society (IEEE)	<http://computer.org/>
IEEE Communications Society (CommSoc)	<http://www.comsoc.org>
Institute for Information Industry (III)	<http://www.iii.org.tw/>
Internet Society (ISOC)	<http://www.isoc.org/>
NYSERNet, Inc.	<http://nysernet.org>
Policy Oversight Committee (POC)	<http://www.gtld-mou.org/>
Sociedad Internet de Mexico	<http://www.isocmex.org.mx/>
SURFnet	<http://www.nic.surfnet.nl/>
Trans European Research and Education Networking Association (TERENA)	<http://www.terena.nl/>
University of Washington	<http://www.washington.edu/>

       ICANN has requested that each constituency present a draft of criteria for constituency participation and a plan for a Names Council member selection process. This draft is submitted by the Internet Society for consideration by the organizations listed above. A final version will be made available on or before May 3, 1999.
 

CRITERIA FOR CONSTITUENCY PARTICIPATION

       Based on the belief that it is impractical to have both individual members and organizations as voting members within a constituency, the NCDNHC proposes that stakeholder organizations, holding domain names, which are organized not-for-profit under the laws of any jurisdiction, and organizations which, although not formally incorporated, are recognized as having substantially
similar purposes, e.g., educational, religious, charitable, or professional, shall be eligible for membership.

        The range of stakeholder organizations eligible for membership in the NCDNHC should be construed broadly so that organizations interested in such matters as dispute resolution or Internet governance, other than furthering commercial interests, will be included.

        The NCDNHC believes that the interests of individual members are best represented by the types of organizations that have already indicated an interest in participating. Proposals have also been made for a separate constituency composed of individual domain name holders. Because other constituencies will be available for non-profit organizations established primarily to promote the commercial interests of members, such as 501(c)(6) organizations under US law, this type of non-profit organization shall not be eligible to participate in the NCDNHC.

        An open issue is the question of voting rights for organizations that are formally or legally separate but are included within an umbrella organization that is also a member. For example, the chapters of the Internet Society and the subsidiary organizations of IEEE pose this question. Pending a decision by the constituency, it is proposed that such subsidiary organizations may be members of NCDNHC but are not entitled to vote.

        The NCDNHC proposes that the membership shall be entitled to vote on the qualifications of applicants for membership, and that applicants may be required to provide evidence as to qualifications, including such factors as number of members, purposes and date of organization.
 

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

        Because of limited financial resources of many or most non-profit organizations, the NCDNHC proposes that this constituency have no formal organization at this time. Voting shall be by a simple majority of members, and the nomination and election of Names Council members shall be conducted by email. Consultation by Names Council members with the constituency shall
also be conducted by email or other electronic means that may be made available.

        In order to assure the required geographic distribution of Names Council members, no two members shall be from the same one of the geographic areas defined in  the ICANN bylaws, and no two members shall be from the same organization.

        The following procedures shall apply for elections of Names Council members:

1.      The election process will be initiated by a nomination period of one week. Each member of the NCDNHC may nominate one person for the Names Council.

2.      There shall be an election period of one week, during which members will vote by email.

3.      Names Council members will be elected by the largest number of votes processed as follows:

a.      All nominees from the same region as the person with the largest number of votes will be eliminated. From the resulting list, all nominees from the same region as the person with the second number of votes will be eliminated. The three people at the top of the remaining list will be elected.

b.      In case of a tie, a tie-breaker election between the two candidates with an equal number of votes will be held.