On 4th March 1999 ICANN issued Domain Name Supporting Organization Formation Concepts and the ICANN bylaws were subsequently amended to provide for the creation of the Support Organisations.
The structure of the DNSO allows for 7 initial Constituencies who must self organise and be recognised by ICANN. Each constituency may elect 3 representatives to sit on the Names Council, a steering committee for the DNSO responsible for managing consensus and making recommendations to the ICANN Board regarding TLDs. ]
On 27 May 1999, the ICANN board provisionally recognised 6 of the 7 initial constituencies, including that of ccTLD registries, until the annual meeting in November 1999 before which time, the constituencies must amend their proposals to address deficiencies noted by the board. The amendments must include a commitment to hold a new election of Names Council representatives promptly following the approval by the Board of such amended proposal.
ccTLD Constituency
An initial meeting was held in Berlin on 25th May 1999 to debate and find consensus on the structure and rules of the constituency. A CENTR document outlining basic principles for the constituency was used as a basis of discussion. The document was subsequently redrafted to take into account consensus reached during the meeting and the new Guiding Principles for the ccTLD constituency was submitted to ICANN as the basis for recognising the constituency.
Administrative Committee of the ccTLD Constituency :
In accordance with the Constituency Principles, each of the five regions recognised by ICANN is permitted to have representation in the Administrative Committee together with any affiliation of ccTLDs which has 10 members or more. To speed up the process of establishing the constituency and creating an electoral process, an initial Adminstration Committee has been selected.