ICANN eliminates .org domain price caps despite lopsided opposition
Earlier this year, ICANN sought public comment on a new contract for the Public Interest Registry, the non-profit organization that administers the .org top-level domain. The results were stark. More than 3,200 individuals and organizations submitted comments to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, and most of them focused on a proposal to remove a cap on the price customers could be charged for .org domains.
The existing contract, signed in 2013, banned the Public Interest Registry from charging more than $8.25 per domain. It allowed annual price increases of no more than 10 percent. Registrars can add their own fees on top of this base amount, but competition among registrars helps keep those added fees down.
According to one tally, 3,252 comments supported keeping the price cap. Another 57 comments didn't express an opinion on this issue one way or the other. Only six supported higher prices. Of those, one was filed by a former executive at Verisign, a for-profit company that administers the .com domain that might want to raise its own prices in the future. Another was from a lobbying organization that counts Verisign as a member. A third appeared to be voicing support only sarcastically.
To sum up, fewer than 0.07 percent of commenters thought it would be a good idea to remove the price cap on .org domains, while more than 98 percent opposed the change. But on Sunday, as the old contract was about to expire, ICANN approved a new contract without a price cap.
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Public Interest Registry, the non-profit organization managing the .ORG Top Level Domain (TLD) has been sold to investment firm Ethos Capital.
PIR was established by the Internet Society in 2002 to manage and operate the .ORG domain. Since then, .ORG has risen to become the largest purpose-driven domain used by millions of organizations and others to achieve their online goals.
[...]“This is an important and exciting development for both the Internet Society and Public Interest Registry,” said Andrew Sullivan, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Internet Society, the organization that established Public Interest Registry. “This transaction will provide the Internet Society with an endowment of sustainable funding and the resources to advance our mission on a broader scale as we continue our work to make the Internet more open, accessible and secure – for everyone.
Obviously this comes as a complete and utter surprise to everybody, a couple of months after ICANN eliminated the .org price cap despite overwhelming opposition.
All of PIR’s domain operations and educational initiatives will continue, and there will be no disruption of service or support to the .ORG Community or other generic top-level domains operated by the organization.
It looks like all parties involved wisely decided not to comment on any expected price increases though.
Submitted via IRC for chromas
Analysis The price tag for one of the internet's largest and most important domain-name registries has finally been revealed: $1.135bn.
That is how much unknown private equity company Ethos Capital, funded by the investment vehicles of US billionaires, has offered the Internet Society (ISOC) to take over the .org registry; a move that has caused weeks of controversy that show no sign of slowing.
The figure was finally revealed by CEO of ISOC Andrew Sullivan at a webinar late last week. "I have only just now received permission to disclose a new piece of information, that we have not been able to disclose before," he told online attendees.
"And that is the amount of money that the Internet Society is receiving under this. I am sorry I wasn't able to send it around, but this is new information that we will post later today. The total purchase price in this case is $1.135bn."
The level of secrecy over the deal has been one of the most significant concerns over the proposed sale, which will shift more than 10 million .org domains to a for-profit company after having spent the past 16 years run by the non-profit organization Public Internet Registry (PIR), that was itself set up, and is wholly owned, by the non-profit Internet Society (ISOC). Specifically, the deal involves Ethos taking over PIR, thus taking over the top-level domain it oversees.
Previously: ICANN Eliminates .org Price Cap Despite Overwhelming Opposition
.ORG TLD Sold to Investment Firm Ethos Capital
After the sale, Ethos Capital, having paid $1.135 billion for .ORG to ISOC, will have to recoup that investment on a scale that's expected of a private equity firm. This week, Ethos revealed for the first time that some $360 million of the purchase price will be financed with a loan. The payments on that loan will have to come out of Ethos's profits, so they will probably need to raise more money per year than ISOC currently does. While Ethos could try to simply increase the number of its "customers" for .ORGs, PIR has tried this in the past, and the demand for the domains has remained largely flat. This is no surprise; the nonprofit sector just doesn't grow at exponential rates.
That brings us to the myriad reasons nonprofits have criticized the deal: every other way that Ethos might increase profits is bad news for .ORG users. And these tactics aren't farfetched: every one of them is already delivering profits in other sectors, often while harming domain registrants and their visitors.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/icann-needs-ask-more-questions-about-sale-org
Previously:
As Internet Pioneers Fight to Preserve .org's Status, those in Charge are Hiding Behind Dollar Signs
ICANN Demands Transparency from Others Over .org Deal; As for Itself... Well, Not So Much
Internet Society Says Opportunity to Sell .org TLD to Private Equity Biz Came Out of the Blue
As Pressure Builds Over .Org Sell-Off, Internet Governance Orgs Remains Silent
.ORG TLD Sold to Investment Firm Ethos Capital
ICANN Eliminates .org Price Cap Despite Overwhelming Opposition
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday July 02 2019, @03:54AM (2 children)
Now ICANN has email addresses of 3,252 troublemakers to be "leaked" out.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday July 02 2019, @04:07AM (1 child)
I don't think ICANN cares about those troublemakers that much. They sure didn't listen to what they have to say.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Tuesday July 02 2019, @04:32AM
:-) It might not be for them. Since the intent was totally false, they were seeking something other than comments, maybe just testing a protocol or algorithm, language training some autoresponder for the predicted reaction to the new prices.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 02 2019, @04:33AM (2 children)
That's every ICANN this decade, isn't it?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 5, Funny) by takyon on Tuesday July 02 2019, @05:42AM (1 child)
soylentnews.org
This time, it's personnel.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by martyb on Tuesday July 02 2019, @09:19AM
I would not phrase it exactly like that, but "SoylentNews is people"...
[For the humor-impaired, I think he meant to use the word "personal", but in this case his misspelling works, too! Or, was that intentional and the sound you heard was a big whoosh as the joke went over my head! =)]
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Tuesday July 02 2019, @06:51AM
Unilaterally approve a name change to
ICANNT
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @07:28AM
It's why we can't have nice things.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @02:17PM
Oh, you thought that ICANN existed for the benefits and concerns of the users instead of the moneymakers? How quaint!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @07:32PM
blockchain their asses!