For the record, it appears to be a British group spearheading this effort. But either way, the same problems would seem to apply.
At 12:19 AM -0300 30/7/09, Carlos Afonso wrote:Yeah, that was sort of my concern. An NGO is not the same as a charity in most jurisdictions. A .ngo gTLD 'for charities only' would not only be of no use to most of the NGOs that I am involved in, but would be mildly annoying.
Hi Norbert, it seems not to be the worldwide ngo community, but the US
ngo community. Even the concept of "charities" varies widely from
country to country, depending on quite different local laws. This seems
to be a TLD for the 501(c) organizations in the USA and this is it. We,
in the planet outside of those US boundaries, should not bother about
it, I guess.
(the requirements for 'tax deductible gift recipient' status (ie an official charity) in Australia are much more stringent than those for a US 501 (c), most NGOs are non-profit organisations, but that isn't the same thing as a charity at all)
Seems to be a case where a gTLD is being proposed for a US-centric purpose that should really be served by something under the .us ccTLD, partly as a result of laissez-faire management of the appropriate gTLD.
FWIW, .org.au is restricted to non-profits and charities.
Cheers
David