Page History

A case was put to us that the existing division of constituencies does not well serve “brands” that are, increasingly, acquiring their own TLDs in which they can be registries, registrars and business users, and within which policy rules may be different from open TLDs.

Suggest clarification:

A case was put to us that the existing GNSO Structure fails completely to serve “brands” that are, increasingly, acquiring their own brand registries. The business objective and internal policies of brand registries are radically different to the open registries around which the current GNSO was created. The charter of the Registry Stakeholder Groups does not allow for constituencies but a looser concept of Interest Groups.

Moreover, the arrival of brand registries challenges the very basis of the current GNSO structure with its division between users (the CSG and NCSG) and contract parties (RSG and RySG). A brand may well be simultaneously: a registry, a business user or a non-commercial user, and have intellectual property interests.

The changing environment drives a requirement for flexibility in policy-making and representative structures. An example of this is the interest of brands in new gTLDs – brand owners potentially become registries, registrars and users of domains, as well as maintaining their obvious interests in intellectual property.

In theory the current GNSO structure provides for the creation of new constituencies so that a wider range of views can be represented. 

Suggest clarification to paragraph2:

The current GNSO structure, which predates new types of TLDs, and the underlying charters of the stakeholder groups provides for the creation of new constituencies only in two of the four Stakeholder Groups (Commercial SG and the Non-Commercial SG). The charters of the Registry Stakeholder Group and the Registrar Stakeholder group do not allow for new constituencies.