3.6.3.3 The Consumers SO

The remaining DNSO constituencies-Business, ISP, Non-Commercial, and Intellectual Property-ought to be reformed into a Consumers Supporting Organization, but only with effective internal reform to all four constituencies. Each of these constituencies has been criticized, justifiably, for a wide array of problems ranging from representativeness to self-sustainability to openness and transparency. As a result, the DNSO process has suffered greatly and important policy discussions have ground to a halt.

The Non-Commercial Domain Name Holders Constituency's size, combined with the difficulties encountered in defining its own membership, call into question the wisdom of a constituency defined, as it is, in the negative. The NCDNHC has become a catch-all for interests that do not fit elsewhere, and as a result has found consensus an elusive, if not impossible, goal on many issues. It may be wise to divide the NCDNHC into two or more component groups, like NGO name holders, academic name holders, or individual name holders.

The Business and ISP constituencies, while their definitional questions are easier, are also small and therefore vulnerable to allegations of capture or non-representativeness. The Business constituency in particular has a very small membership and seems limited in terms of the type of businesses it represents (there are almost no small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) in the constituency) and it also has limited geographic representation. Several have also claimed a lack of transparency by the Business Constituency. A restated outreach mission and internal reform seems necessary in both cases.

The question facing the Intellectual Property Constituency is complicated and difficult to understand as the IPC does not operate in a transparent manner. While the IPC has been one of the DNSO's most efficient constituencies, many have claimed that this is because its membership is extremely (perhaps excessively) homogenous, populated as it is (largely) by representatives from intellectual property industry associations and intellectual property attorney organizations. Many of these attorneys have name-holding clients, others represent organizations seeking to protect trademark and copyright online. In any case, discussion in the IPC to date has been tilted severely towards extending the rights and interests of intellectual property rights holders, with users and consumers of intellectual property poorly represented. Even-handed deliberation is unlikely in such an environment, and some attention to the IPC's membership structure is warranted. Indeed, some critics have gone so far as to call for the IPC's dissolution.

3.6.3.2 The Name Providers SO

3.6.3.4 Restructuring in the Near Term