Materials on .org Reassignment

On 31 December 2002, the previous registry agreement for the operation of the .org top-level domain (TLD) expired. Beginning in April 2002 the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) engaged in a process for the designation of a successor operator for .org. On 2 December 2002, ICANN entered into an agreement with Public Interest Registry designating it as the successor operator.

This page collects the materials from the .org reassignment process.

Key Documents from the Application Process

• Final Request-for-Proposals Materials (20 May 2002)
• Criteria for Assessing Proposals (20 May 2002)
• Proposals Received (18 June 2002)
• Supplemental Questions to Applicants and Their Responses (4 August-14 September 2002)
• Preliminary Staff Evaluation Report (19 August 2002)
• Applicant Comments on Preliminary Staff Evaluation Report (29 August 2002)
• Final Staff Evaluation Report (23 September 2002)
• Applicant Commentary on Final Staff Evaluation Report (3 October 2002)
• ICANN Board's Selection of Public Interest Registry (14 October 2002)
• Final .org Registry Agreement (2 December 2002)
• E-mail Comments on Evaluation
• Web-Based Comment Forum on .org Reassignment

Schedule

The key events in the .org reassignment process were:

• 22 April 2002 - Target schedule for the .org Request for Proposal (RFP) process was announced.
• 1 May 2002 - Draft Request for Proposal (RFP) materials was posted for Names Council comment and for applicants to begin working on their proposals.
• 13 May 2002 - Deadline for DNSO Names Council to provide ICANN Secretary any comment on the posted materials.
• 13 May 2002 - Deadline for prospective applicants to submit written questions regarding the draft RFP.
• 20 May 2002 - Finalized RFP materials were posted.
• 24 May 2002 - Written questions from prospective applicants were posted with responses
• 18 June 2002 - Deadline for submission of applications, with tentatively established examination fee to be paid.
• 26 June 2002 - Proposals were discussed at ICANN Public Forum in Bucharest. Applicants made presentations.
• 28 June 2002 - Board finally established examination fee at US$ 29,000.
• 9 August 2002 - Last day for ICANN to pose questions or requests for additional information to applicants.
• 19 August 2002 - The draft staff report was posted. It was accompanied by written reports received from the groups involved in the evaluation. Comments by the applicants and the public were invited on these materials.
• 29 August 2002 - This was the deadline for applicant comments on and responses to draft staff report.
• 4-13 September 2002 - During this period, ICANN posed clarifying questions and applicants responded.
• 23 September 2002 - The final staff evaluation report was posted.
• 23 September-8 October 2002 - This was the public comment period on the finalized evaluation report. Comments received were posted for Board and public review.
• 1 October 2002 - Each applicant was invited to submit by this date a commentary, no more than 5000 words long, on the final evaluation report. The commentaries were provided to the ICANN Board and posted shortly after they were received.
• 14 October 2002 - The ICANN Board considered the evaluation report at a telephone meeting. Public Interest Registry (PIR) was selected as the successor operator.
• 24 October 2002 - The proposed registry agreement between ICANN and PIR was posted.
• 31 October 2002 - This was the last day for Board members to submit objections to proposed agreement on policy grounds. (No objections were received.)
• 26 November 2002 - The U.S. Department of Commerce approved PIR as the successor registry operator for .org.
• 2 December 2002 - ICANN and PIR entered into .org Registry Agreement (same version as posted on 24 October 2002).
• 1 January 2003 - PIR will assume responsibility for operation of the .org top-level domain. For the first 25 days of January 2003, VeriSign will serve as the temporary back-end operator for PIR. See ICANN's 7 January 2003 advisory for a description of the transition steps.
• 25 January 2003 - Technical cutover from VeriSign back-end services to Afilias back-end services.

Applications Received

The following eleven applications were received by the 18 June 2002 deadline:

Updates

• Update on .org Reassignment Process (25 July 2002)
• Second Update on .org Reassignment Process (4 August 2002)
• Preliminary Report to ICANN Board: ISOC to Run .org? (19 August 2002)
• Third Update on .org Reassignment Process (21 August 2002)
• Fourth Update on .org Reassignment Process (4 September 2002)
• Fifth Update on .org Reassignment Process (5 September 2002)
• Sixth Update on .org Reassignment Process (13 September 2002)
• Seventh Update on .org Reassignment Process (23 September 2002)

Page updated 09-Jan-2003
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