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posted by janrinok on Thursday February 20 2020, @05:53PM   Printer-friendly
from the maybe-too-late dept.

Now Internet Society told to halt controversial .org sale... by its own advisory council: 'You misread the community mindset around dot-org':

The Internet Society's own members are now opposing its sale of the .org internet registry to an unknown private equity firm.

The Chapters Advisory Council, the official voice of Internet Society (ISOC) members, will vote this month on whether to approve a formal recommendation that the society "not proceed [with the sale] unless a number of conditions are met."

Those conditions largely comprise the publication of additional details and transparency regarding ISOC's controversial sell-off of .org. Despite months of requests, neither the society nor the proposed purchaser, Ethos Capital, have disclosed critical elements of the deal, including who would actually own the registry if the sale went through.

[...] ISOC – and .org's current operator, the ISOC-controlled Public Interest Registry (PIR) – are still hoping to push DNS overseer ICANN to make a decision on the .org sale before the end of the month. But that looks increasingly unlikely following an aggressive letter from ICANN's external lawyers last week insisting ICANN will take as much time as it feels necessary to review the deal.

The overall lack of transparency around the $1.13bn deal has led California's Attorney General to demand documents relating to the sale – and ISOC's chapters are demanding the same information as a pre-condition to any sale in their proposed advice to the ISOC board.

That information includes: full details of the transaction; a financial breakdown of what Ethos Capital intends to do with .org's 10 million internet addresses; binding commitments on limiting price increases and free speech protections; and publication of the bylaws and related corporate documents for both the replacement to the current registry operator, PIR, and the proposed "Stewardship Council" which Ethos claims will give .org users a say in future decisions.

[...] "There is a feeling amongst chapters that ISOC seems to have disregarded community participation, failed to properly account for the potential community impact, and misread the community mindset around the .ORG TLD," the Chapters Advisory Council's proposed advice to the ISOC board – a copy of which The Register has seen – states.

Although the advisory council has no legal ability to stop ISOC, if the proposed advice is approved by vote, and the CEO and board of trustees push ahead with the sale regardless, it could have severe repercussions for the organization's non-profit status, and would further undermine ISOC's position that the sale will "support the Internet Society's vision that the Internet is for everyone."


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  • (Score: 2) by legont on Friday February 21 2020, @05:21AM (5 children)

    by legont (4179) on Friday February 21 2020, @05:21AM (#960596)

    Looks like you assume guaranteed 5% interest on the investment.
    Let's look at it from a long term prospective. Modern capitalism exists for say 400 years? 100 invested at 5% for 400 years would make 3*10^10 if my math is correct - 30 billion.
    So, either there are zero sane investors out there or the rate is way above the realistic one.

    --
    "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
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  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday February 21 2020, @03:54PM

    by Freeman (732) on Friday February 21 2020, @03:54PM (#960686) Journal

    400 years is about 4 very long lived people's life times. Yeah, I'm going with they don't care about what $$$ is going to be worth 400 years from now. That's also, assuming, the United States of America even lasts that long. It's not even 300 years old, yet.

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2020, @04:09PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2020, @04:09PM (#960693)

    Let's say the person is a paranoid then, and follows one of two paths: Nothing but U.S. 1 Year T-bills, or just stuffs the remainder in their mattress. (I choose t-bills because if those collapse then the whole $7 mil is going to be useless anyway, as least to a USian.)
    On the T-Bill track: at the current 1.54% rate for a 1 year, that is a $107,800 return over a single year. Still plenty to do what Thexalon suggests.
    On a "stuff it in your mattress and dole it out": Over a 122 year lifetime that is $57,377 per year. Still more than sufficient to have roof and food over your head.

    In real world terms if you can't pull an average of 5 percent return off an investment portfolio you either have a serious mental defect and/or have hired nothing but crooks to advise you.

  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday February 21 2020, @04:26PM (1 child)

    by Thexalon (636) on Friday February 21 2020, @04:26PM (#960703)

    5% return is pretty easy to get these days, according to anyone I've ever read or talked to in finance. The more aggressive approaches to investment get you closer to 7-10%, and the really risky approaches get you closer to 15-20%.

    Regarding your history: 400 years ago, there was nothing like a modern stock market, and very few things similar to the modern corporation. And yes, compound interest is a pretty impressive force, but you haven't accounted for inflation, revolutions that wipe out fortunes, spending, idiot heirs destroying the family fortune, and lots of other things that can go seriously wrong.

    Also, as the famous economist John Maynard Keynes pointed out, "in the long run, we are all dead".

    And of course the other option these hypothetical multimillionaires always have is to go back to working for a living. Crazy concept, I know.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Friday February 21 2020, @07:14PM

      by legont (4179) on Friday February 21 2020, @07:14PM (#960799)

      The world is built in such a way that no passive income is possible over the long run (say you and your children) no matter what your financial adviser tells you. That's why most people who made serious money know that the only way to keep it is to make more money - a lot more. One can't stop, but only run faster.
      Besides, current rich plan to leave forever themselves - be it in physical or virtual form - and whoever gets there first will take it all while the initial entrance ticket would be very expencive.

      --
      "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.