Australian NFPs Warned on Dot NGO Domain Name Issues
1 March 2012 at 11:34 am
Australian Not for Profits have been warned not to leap into supporting the establishment of a new global .NGO domain name without careful consideration.
A Not for Profit organisation that assists Australian community organisations in making better use of information technology, called CASE says Australian Not for Profits already benefit from a .org domain name system that is recognised world wide as having the highest of integrity.
Pro Bono Australia News reported recently that a number of competing organisations are calling on Australian NFPs for their expressions of interest as the battle for control of the .NGO domain to be established for the exclusive use of community sector organisations worldwide.
The Public Interest Registry, a US based organisation currently managing the .ORG domain name space, is one organisation vying for the management of a new domain name of .NGO.
PIR is appealing to Australian NFP organisations to sign an online petition in support of the initiative.
A UK charity called Article 25, also wants to win the right to create the Top Level Domain (TLD) name.NGO.
Darrell Burkey, President of CASE, says that while his organisation understands and supports the need for US based organisations to work towards the same level of domain name integrity that is in Australia, he does not believe adding new domain names is the best strategy to achieve that goal.
“CASE has worked closely with the Australian Domain Administration over the years representing the needs of Australian non-profit organisations. It appears that Public Interest Registry may not be familiar with how well the Australian domain name system operates,” Burkey said.
“Thanks to the hard work of volunteers who initially managed the domain name system in Australia and the establishment of a Domain Name Administration some years ago, Australian Not for Profits benefit from a domain name system that is recognized world wide as having the highest of integrity.
“The result of this work is that when you see a domain name using .org.au or .asn.au you can be confident that you are dealing with a legitimate Australian Not for Profit organisation.
He says the addition of a new domain name for NFPs will require ‘defensive registration’ which is one of the greatest concerns with the use of domain names overall.
“If .NGO is created most NFP organisations will have yet another domain name that they will want to license and manage. In this case the domain name will be of little value because it will not identify the non-profit as an Australian Not for Profit organisation.”
He says it remains to be seen if there will be any support for a new .NGO domain name for the use of all Not for Profits globally.
“We would like to encourage the Public Interest Registry to work with the Australian Domain Administration and involve Australian domain name stakeholders before seeking support of such an initiative.”
CASE recommends that member organisations do their research and consider the proposal carefully before indicating their support for the establishment of a new global domain name for non-profit organisations.
The domain name governing body, ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) says it will publish a list of the applications and who has applied for which domain name in early May.
The decision on how new domains within new gTLDs will be distributed is being finalised by ICANN late in 2012.
To find out more about the PIR .NGO campaign go to www.ngotld.org/support
To find out more about the UK campaign go to www.dotngo.net/default.htm
To read more from Computing Assistance Support and Education Inc (CASE) blog go to: www.case.org.au/blogs/case/2012/02/new-domain-name-proposed-for-non-profits
After reading Mr. Burkey’s blog on the February 17, my colleague (Lance Wolak) and I reached out to him so we could have an open dialog about this initiative, listen to his concerns, and address any misconceptions. After a lengthy discussion, I believe we all came away with a better understanding of each other’s position. In case you haven’t seen it, below is Lance’s comment on CASE’s blog.
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First, on behalf of Public Interest Registry (PIR), I’d like to thank Mr. Burkey with CASE for commenting on the important subject of the global expansion of the domain name system, and in particular, our proposal to create .NGO. We value your community involvement and feedback and we continue to seek this from the community through our informational global outreach. Additionally, we are very pleased with AusRegistry’s excellent work to require credentials from non-profits within the .AU domain space for their registrations. While we feel this is an important step in the right direction, much work remains to bring this capability to NGOs around the globe.
We are working closely with members of the NGO community to serve their interests, whether they already have a domain name registered, or are just coming online. For the protection of existing domain name holders (as well as brand holders), ICANN, the governing body of the Internet, has worked very hard with various policy-making bodies and Internet communities to protect intellectual property and trademarks during this new round of top-level domain name expansion. We fully support this effort and will implement such policies for the protection of registrants. A .NGO domain will offer capability unique to the NGO Community, and offer greater choice with respect to all available top level domains.
The global NGO Community believes strongly in having an online capability of presenting credentials that can verify their organization as a true NGO. It is PIR’s intent with .NGO to offer this value to NGOs in all parts of the world, including those that do not already have access to such a strong verification capability.
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