Controversial sale of .org web domain blocked:
The controversial sale of the .org web domain - used by charities and non-profit organisations - has been set back after months of deliberation.
Public Internet Registry (PIR), which runs the .org domain, was sold in November to private equity firm Ethos Capital for a rumoured $1bn (£800m).
Critics warned that the new owner would try to run .org for profit, costing charities millions.
[...] The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) is the governing body for top-level domains such as .org and .com.
It declined to honour the transfer of PIR from the Internet Society to Ethos Capital on Thursday.
It said the block was "reasonable, and the right thing to do".
In a statement, it said Ethos Capital had "no meaningful plan to protect or serve the .org community".
The takeover would leave a debt of $360m, which PIR would be "forced to service" and "provide returns to its shareholders".
Also at:
ICANN blocks controversial sale of .org domain to a private equity firm
ICANN blocks proposal to let .org be sold to a for-profit group
Hurray, the .org TLD won't be sold off to a private company
(Score: 5, Insightful) by crb3 on Saturday May 02 2020, @10:18AM
This was ICANN going "Oh, shit, we got caught by the California A.G. who has the legal power to cost us money and legal trouble." They still flipped the evil bit and should be remapped to icann.rico.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @10:19AM (1 child)
It doesn't happen as often as it should anymore, but they do get it right from time to time.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday May 02 2020, @10:44AM
Perhaps, the brazenness of the original Ethos move indicates that ICANN will be depowered in the next few years. Insiders are cashing out. That's a common symptom for an organization that nears its end.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @11:05AM (2 children)
Dear Shareholders,
We got royally screwed by the California A.G., but we have learned our lesson from this. We have a three phase plan for improving our performance.
1. Use $2 million of your money to get that dope un-elected
2. Change our name to "Friendly Capital Corp."
3. Cut-and-paste the original agreement once the dust has settled
We are sorry that the payday will take a few extra months, but don't worry, we are still going to fuck those charities if it's the last thing we do.
- Ethos Management
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @01:19PM (1 child)
Friendly Capital ain't never done wrong by me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @01:56PM
I take it that Friendly Capital didn't sell your mortgage to some sleazy mortgage broker?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @01:55PM
The likelyhood of this scam getting through the courts is/was low. ICANN is just trying to make sure it appears to be on the wrong side to appear authoritative.
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Saturday May 02 2020, @03:00PM (2 children)
Thank God!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @06:11PM
God had nothing to do with it. He owns Ethos Capital stock.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Monday May 04 2020, @06:06PM
modded up but I am not counting on any divine being to save us from things like ethos and thrive capital, or fix the internet.
In essence, that is also the problem, looking for someone else, a central authority, to just make things work so we do not have to think or design democratic systems to make decisions because it is difficult.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday May 02 2020, @06:57PM (1 child)
We all knew that. Funny that ICANN, who stood to make big bucks from this extortion scheme, didn't know that until the California AG knew that.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Monday May 04 2020, @06:11PM
Something is rotten in denmark...I agree.
This is cultural hegemony politics. That is what these people at ethos and their backers at thrive do.
They want their people to occupy all positions of power, and all reigns of control, and as invisibly as possible.
That is what they do. That is who we are up against. Dig deep and you will find their true allegiances, which are not for the internet, or the united states, or any virtue or value.
That is why patreon and youtube are demonitizing everyone who is not part of their cabal, that is what they want to turn the entire dns system into, and their plans are as far as I am concerned at this point totally naked and they can only push their agenda through via
a. colosal ignorance, encouraged by distractions, by mass media companies owned by *same people*
b. infiltration, and because your statement is true, there are probably already half-way there
That is why I wrote this book: https://leanpub.com/mentalselfdefense [leanpub.com]
Public serving organizations need to smarten up and the public needs to smarten up with them, to their strategies, and you are either part of this information process or you are part of the process of blinding and oppressing everyone with a mountain of lies to enslave them.
Or as someone else more eloquently put it, "another brick in the wall."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jasassin on Saturday May 02 2020, @07:31PM (6 children)
An open question.
What could/should be done to prevent these shenanigans in the future?
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday May 03 2020, @12:27AM (2 children)
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Sunday May 03 2020, @12:28AM (1 child)
Acronyms scrambled my B.R.A.I.N.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Sunday May 03 2020, @07:41AM
Release the B.R.I.A.N.!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2020, @01:34PM
Allow every organisation, person, being, thing have their own .domain for their very very own.
I claim .DorkWithAMission
It'll be like the original .com landclaim era all over again!
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Monday May 04 2020, @06:35PM (1 child)
First, why use gmail and encryption? You might as well just send all your encrypted emails straight to the nsa decrpytion mainframe for priority analysis. Using gmail for privacy is like using a bath of sulpheric acid to get clean. I could think of better metaphors but I think it is clear enough, the two things are diametrically opposed.
Your question is why I wrote this book and wrote here all of last year, so it is ironic to to me anyone even needs to ask.
https://jmichaelhudson.net/rated-soylent-comments/ [jmichaelhudson.net]
https://archive.is/FHpOa [archive.is]
And I also wrote essays and put them into a book:
https://leanpub.com/mentalselfdefense [leanpub.com]
This will warn and instruct all civilians on the depth and sophistication of efforts by various state and corporate actors to infiltrate and disintegrate all effective civilian organizations, while using their remaining air of legitimacy, even in the obvious absence of it, to endorse other tyrannical measures.
Read my comments here: https://saidit.net/s/SaidIt/comments/44gq/saidit_has_the_chance_to_become_a_free_speech/ [saidit.net]
That is the way forward, I have been saying this for nearly 20 years and I am not changing my tune, everything has only further proven I was right when I got my degree in 2001. We need to accept that mediation and moderation and administration of forums is at this point not a hobby or volunteer effort, but legitimate, necessary-for-survival element of human governance, and recognize that this costs money.
Also that the people who have a billion dollars to ruin .org clearly have too much money they do not deserve, so the money is there, we just need to move it to where it will solve problems rather than create them(or build the entire internet into a tyrannical control mechanism for a tiny handful of https://archive.is/2MFbn [archive.is] to turn the world into an even worse place.
Roberts rules of order need to be updated, digitized, and secured, as do voting, or the internet is going to plunge us into a regressive dark age, which is really what is being threatened at the moment. And what spooky silver spook jackasses like erik brooks either do not understand, or understand all too well.
I mean, he should a strong background to grasp these concepts after managing children's musical concerts, right? /s
Or you can consider the ideas of someone like myself, who was talking about this at the very beginning when people thought it would all just sort itself out somehow and we would never face a scenario where the entire world could not figure out who to trust on the matter of a pandemic.
(and the greatest enabler of computer viruses was for some reason suddenly the global authority on biological viruses...)
Meanwhile the most popular *dialogue* in the history of the world got 1 million live views for a simple conversation, and the most famous internet company is outright censoring the participants without even have to justify their actions.
And you will also notice archive.is came under attack this week for daring to make things that cannot be censored.
You tell me how far we have come, but to me it looks like backwards.
When you get stuck, you have to question your assumptions. And the entire premise of your question is just that, so maybe you should consider the ideas of people like me who have been singing the same tune from the beginning and saw all of this coming.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Tuesday May 05 2020, @07:56AM
With a 4096 bit key, let them grind away on that for a few hundred (thousand?) years. I'm not an encryption expert, but I highly doubt they would crack that key before resorting to the rubber hose.
As far as gmail, if it's end to end encrypted who cares? It's probably safer going through gmail since most of the people I email are using gmail so the mail doesn't have to go through any external mail exchanges.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A