I am contacting you in the hopes that you will add your support for the proposed Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG) charter at ICANN by signing onto this joint civil society statement: http://www.ipjustice.org/ICANN/NCSG/NCSG_Charter_Civil_Society_Support.pdf 

As you know, the Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) is the organization that represents non-commercial interests and advocates for the protection of digital rights including free expression, privacy, due process of law and other non-commercial interests in ICANN-GNSO policy discussions.  As part of ICANN’s GNSO Restructuring efforts, the 6 “constituencies” are being replaced by 4 broader “stakeholder groups”, including a Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG) to represent the interests of non-commercial users of domain names in the GNSO policy arena at ICANN.

NCUC has submitted a petition for the charter of the NCSG that intends to encourage broader civil society participation at ICANN and aims to increase the relative power of non-commercial interests in ICANN policy negotiations.  

All of the proposed stakeholder group petitions are in the midst of a Public Comment Period at ICANN (until 15 April - end-of-business in California today) so the ICANN Board of Directors can receive input from the general public on the various stakeholder group petitions.  

In summary, the NCUC’s petition for a Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group is the best proposal of those submitted because it:

• Emphasizes democratic representation to the Generic Names Supporting Organization instead of a constituency-based approach that gives disproportionate power to select groups.
• Encourages cooperation and inclusiveness through consensus-building among members of the stakeholder groups.
• Ensures that minority viewpoints are heard and their policy ideas are explored through an increased reliance on working groups.
• Operates with a flexible and lightweight framework that allows it to focus on representing non-commercial interests without getting bogged down by bureaucratic details.

Please consider signing the following statement to indicate your support for the NCSG petition from NCUC. 

Joint Civil Society Statement Supporting the NCSG Petition from NCUC:

http://www.ipjustice.org/ICANN/NCSG/NCSG_Charter_Civil_Society_Support.pdf

Please indicate your support for signing this civil society statement before 15 April today (End-of-Business in California) which is the deadline for submitting Public Comments by sending an email to [log in to unmask].  Thank you very much.

Signed,

The NCUC Executive Committee and GNSO Councilors:

Robin Gross, NCUC Chair

Norbert Klein, NCUC Nominating Committee Representative (Asia)

Carlos Affonso Pereira de Souza, NCUC GNSO Policy Councilor (South America)

Mary Wong, NCUC GNSO Policy Councilor (Asia)

William Drake, NCUC GNSO Policy Councilor (Europe)

Carlos Afonso, NCUC Executive Committee Representative (South America)

Horacio Cadiz NCUC Executive Committee Representative (Asia)

Georg Greve, NCUC Executive Committee Representative (Europe)

Robert Guerra, NCUC Executive Committee Representative (North America)

Dave Kissoondoyal, NCUC Executive Committee Representative (Africa)

Background Information:

http://www.ipjustice.org/ICANN/NCSG/NCSG_Charter_Civil_Society_Support.pdf