There has been quite a bit of coverage about the Ethos Capital acquisition of PIR (and the .org registry) for a reported sale price of $1.135 billion. Andrew Allemann of Domain Name Wire has done a particularly good job of covering this, as has Kevin Murphy of Domain Incite and several others. In addition, there has been mainstream coverage of the proposed deal in the Wall St. Journal, The Register, ArsTechnica, and other news outlets with considerable reach.
This evening, the New York Times published an article about the acquisition news and the fallout from the pending acquisition. The most interesting aspect of the article is some new information (to me) that was reported in the article:
“Now, a group of respected internet pioneers and nonprofit leaders is offering an alternative to Ethos Capital’s bid: a nonprofit cooperative corporation. The incorporation papers for the new entity, the Cooperative Corporation of .ORG Registrants, were filed this week in California.
The goal of the group is not only to persuade the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees internet domain names, to stop the sale. It is also to persuade ICANN to hand it the management of dot-org instead.”
According to the article, Esther Dyson, who was as the first chairperson of ICANN, is part of this group.
I don’t have a whole lot of expertise with respect to ICANN and its operations, but this is an interesting development worth watching.
Look peeps, it’s all just Corruption 101. In essence it’s no different than how here in the US we have been continually lied into war and into staying in war all our lives to serve the ends of and enrich the elite few, just as with the current lying Iran related disaster. Legacy TLDs have always been a public trust and that’s that. Any “alternative” to that is just more BS.
PS, speaking of all such lying, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+22%3A15&version=NASB.
The Cooperative Corporation of .ORG Registrants sounds like a better option for .ORG than Ethos Capital does.
The people involved with this .coop,
impressive.
They are so incredibly connected if find it hard to believe zero awareness of the proposals considered to sell back in july/august when the sale process started. (MikeGoodwin)
Final hour action stinks.
They could have easily accomplished this late Nov – early Dec.
Without more detail it appears they are requesting the contract to be handed to them.
Doesn’t address ISOC sustainabity.
At the town hall meet / save.org
ICANN indicated review would be according to sec 7.5.
at the end,
” if ICANN fails to expressly provide or withold it’s consent to any assignment
direct or indirect change of control,
ICANN shall be deemed to have consented.”
ICANN has until Jan 24. If they do nothing, Jan 25 the deal is done.
According to .org contract, ICANN’s only control to withold is related to a change to any critical function at anytime. No change, no legal reason to withold contractually.
In 2001 Michael Roberts (former founding pres. ICANN) stated to congress, (White paper)
ICANN – not in the business of making value judgements and was
never a process in which absolute or relative merit of a particular application was determinative
Now, as a part of this .coop requesting ICANN to “hand it over”
Opponents are asking for a value judgement based on relative merit.
Incredible.