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[Jonah Aragon <jonaharagon AT gmail.com>]

[Replaces the previous '.on' TLD proposal]: This updated charter only has minor changes from the old proposal, namely an addition to the voting section allowing OpenNIC group votes to override the TLD operator's veto.

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CHARTER

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The .o TLD, operated by the modernTLD (a.k.a. ‘mTLD’) administration, is to be used by commercial and non-commercial entities (individual or groups) to promote themselves on the OpenNIC free network. This domain is intended to be used in a general sense, akin to .com in the ICANN network, and as such has a very general use case and little restrictions on registration.

Use of this TLD is not a given right to any holder, and domain names may be revoked by the mTLD administration team or by a vote of domain holders (henceforth known as "Members"), especially pertaining to violations of our policies (see Section 2).

"Members" in this charter refers to owners of .o domains and not OpenNIC members unless otherwise noted.

1. REGISTRATION

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.o domains will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Some domains have been reserved for administrative use (see Section 6) prior to public registration.

Registrations immediately after approval will be handled manually via email. An automated registration system is in development and will be available at tld.o when it becomes available. Registrations will be available from 3 month to 2 year periods. All registrations will be available for free after approval, however, the modernTLD administration holds the right to raise prices as needed to cover operating costs.

2. ABUSE

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mTLD will not tolerate the following behavior, and use of our domains for any of the following is grounds for termination (see Section 3):

- Domain squatting

- Spam email delivery

- Malware distribution

- Malicious interference with computer systems

Our abuse policies are in line with OpenNIC's abuse policies as well (http://wiki.opennicproject.org/TLDPolicy - "Obnoxious Activity: Spam & Cracking"), and any policies listed there apply to .on domains as well. The mTLD registry/administration is not a domain police force and meaningful abuse enforcement will be reliant on members reporting. All abusive behavior should be immediately reported to abuse AT tld.o so administration can take action.

3. TERMINATION / REVOCATION

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Domains can be immediately terminated if they are found to be in violation of our policies by the mTLD administration, and a notice will be sent to the registrant of the offending domain. Domains can also be terminated via a member vote. Membership is granted to any domain holder, 1 vote per member regardless of the amount registrations they hold. Member votes are subject to policies as listed in Section 4.

Domains may also be revoked by the mTLD administration if the OpenNIC membership at large moves to revoke a registration. We do not foresee a circumstance where OpenNIC as a whole will be required to vote on the revocation of a .o domain, but if the need arises we will comply with any such vote.

4. VOTING

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All matters of administrative importance will be voted upon by members of the mTLD domain registry. Motions will be passed by a simple majority of votes (50% + 1). The mTLD administration holds the right to veto any member votes, in order to retain control of .o operation. Administrative vetoes may be overridden by a vote by the OpenNIC community as a whole.

5. DISPUTES

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Trademark holders should email trademarks AT tld.o if they wish to dispute a domain. mTLD will revoke or transfer registrations if ordered by a legitimate court of law, as a courtesy to that country, as applicable to OpenNIC's dispute policy.

6. RESERVED DOMAINS

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The following domains are reserved by the dotON administration and will never be available for public registration:

- tld.o - Primary .on registration website

- www.o - Redirects to tld.o

- nic.o - Redirects to tld.o

- register.o - Redirects to tld.o

- modern.o - modernTLD administration, presently redirects to tld.on

- search.o - Will be hosting an OpenNIC-wide search engine

- mail.o - Will be hosting an OpenNIC compatible email service

- opennic.o - Reserved

- ns1.o - Reserved

- ns2.o - Reserved

- ns3.o - Reserved

- ns4.o - Reserved

7. AMENDMENTS AND MISC. POLICIES

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Amendments to this charter may be added by a vote of .o domain holders. Additionally, the mTLD administration is permitted to provide a binding user agreement for registrations at tld.o that may include policies outside the scope of this charter.

8. FUTURE

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The modernTLD administration is committed to the future of the OpenNIC network and will attempt to provide, in addition to the .o Tier 1 server, Tier 2 DNS servers to support the OpenNIC infrastructure, a search engine for the network, email services, SSL services (under a self-hosted root CA). These services have no deadline for completion at the moment. We also wish to help in spreading the word about OpenNIC via self promotion and joining the Public Relations Working Group: http://wiki.opennicproject.org/PublicRelationsWG.

9. CONTACTS

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- mTLD Administration: admins AT modern.o (hostmaster AT opennic.o forwards here)

- Abuse Reporting: abuse AT tld.o (abuse AT opennic.o forwards here)

- Webmaster: jonah AT modern.o (webmaster AT tld.o, webmaster AT opennic.o forwards here)

- Trademark Disputes: trademarks AT tld.o

- Other Contact: hello AT modern.o

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Thanks for reading through this proposal, we are open to suggestions for any changes.

Jonah Aragon

IRC: jonaharagon on #opennic

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