.NGO/.ONG Registry Agreement Amendment - Mandatory Technical Bundling of Second-Level Domains

• Top-Level Domains
• Second-Level Domains
• Contracted Party Agreements
• Security/Stability

On 12 March 2014, Public Interest Registry (PIR), the registry operator for .NGO and .ONG TLDs, submitted a Registry Services Evaluation Policy (RSEP) request [PDF, 23 KB] to offer mandatory technical bundling of second level domain names for .NGO and .ONG under Exhibit-A of each respective Registry Agreement. PIR has defined a technical bundle as a set of two domain names in different TLDs, with identical second level labels.

In accordance with the RSEP, PIR's request [PDF, 23 KB] was posted for public information and ICANN's preliminary determination identified that the proposed registry service might raise significant stability or security issues. The RSEP request was referred to the Registry Services Technical Evaluation Panel (RSTEP) for further evaluation and resulted in a RSTEP report concluded that from a technical evaluation perspective, the proposal does not create "a reasonable risk of a meaningful adverse effect on stability of security" as defined in the RSEP. The RSTEP report and staff also identified several potential technical and implementation questions associated with introducing the proposed new registry service to the DNS. The RSEP proposal and RSTEP report was published for public comment as required by the RSEP. No comment was received for either public comment periods.

On 9 September 2014, the ICANN Board adopted the findings in the RSTEP report that PIR's proposal does not create "a reasonable risk of a meaningful adverse effect on stability or security", and approved PIR's request related to the introduction of the registry service to support the mandatory technical bundling of second level domain names for .NGO and .ONG. Furthermore, the ICANN Board authorized the President and CEO, or his designee(s), to develop an amendment to implement the new registry service that takes into account and appropriately addresses the related outstanding technical and implementation questions.

Accordingly, ICANN worked with PIR to clarify the outstanding technical and implementation questions. As a result, ICANN is now publishing the .NGO and .ONG Registry Agreement amendments for public comment to obtain community input on the proposed amendment. In consideration of previous public comment periods relating to this request, which included a 50-day public comment period for the RSEP proposal and a 15-day public comment period for the RSTEP Report, the public comment period for the .NGO/.ONG Registry Agreement Amendments will be 30-days to provide the community an additional opportunity to provide input.