As part of its “Year in Review” series, the EFF shares their dramatic behind-the-scenes details about 2020’s fight over the future of .org domains. It begins when the Internet Society (ISOC) announced plans to sell the Public Interest Registry — which manages the .org top-level domain (TLD) — to private equity firm Ethos Capital. “If you come at the nonprofit sector,…
Tag: Ethos Capital
ICANN Halts $1.1 Billion Sale of .Org Registry
Charlotte Web shares a report from The Register: ICANN has halted the proposed $1.1 billion sale of the .org registry to an unknown private equity firm, claiming this was “the right thing to do.” The DNS overseer has been under growing pressure to use its authority to refuse the planned transfer of the top-level domain from the Internet Society to Ethos…
ICANN Delays .Org Sale After Scathing Letter from California’s Attorney General
Ars Technica reports:
ICANN, the nonprofit that oversees the Internet’s domain name system, has given itself another two weeks to decide whether to allow control of the .org domain to be sold to private equity firm Ethos Capital. The decision comes after ICANN received a blizzard of letters from people opposed to the transaction, including California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. Becerra’s letter…
ICANN Delays .Org Sale Again After California’s AG Intervenes At Last Minute
ICANN has again delayed a decision on the sale of the .org registry, pushing the issue off for another month. The Register reports: The organization’s board of directors was due to decide today on whether to approve the $1.13 billion sale of the .org domain from the Internet Society to private equity firm Ethos Capital, but a last-minute letter from California’s…
EFF: .Org Sale ‘Threatens Instability and Dysfunction’
In a scathing editorial, EFF continues to oppose Ethos Capital’s plan to buy the PIR’s .org domain registry for $1.1 billion, arguing that “the current system is stable and functional, and changing it threatens to introduce instability and dysfunction with no countervailing benefit to the community…” “[W]hile there is nothing currently wrong with .ORG, there is a lot that could go…
Sale of .Org Domain Registry Delayed By California Attorney General
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra sent a letter to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) demanding more information about the private equity takeover of the .org domain registry. The attorney general is seeking answers to 35 questions concerning the sale as well as documents sent between ICANN, private equity firm Ethos Capital, and Public Interest Registry (PIR), which…
Internet Pioneers Fight For Control of .Org Registry By Forming a Nonprofit Alternative
Reuters reports that a group of “prominent internet pioneers” now has a plan to block the $1.1 billion sale of the .org internet domain registry to Ethos Capital. The group has created their own nonprofit cooperative to offer an alternative: “There needs to be a place on the internet that represents the public interest, where educational sites, humanitarian sites, and organizations…
The World’s Internet Registries Demand ICANN’s Records on .org Registry Transfer
The world’s five regional Internet registry have an unincorporated organization called the Number Resource Organization, and they also all have representatives on a supporting organization affiliated with ICANN called the Address Supporting Organization (ASO). This week the ASO “submitted correspondence” to ICANN about the proposed transfer for the .org registry to Ethos Capital, reports CircleID: This is a historic step as…
ICANN Delays .Org Sale Approval, Calls For More Transparency
“ICANN has delayed its approval of the sale of .Org to private equity company Ethos Capital by requesting more information,” reports Domain Name Wire:
According to its contract with Public Interest Registry (PIR) to run .org, ICANN had 30 days from when PIR notified it of the transaction to request more information. It has now done so. After it receives the responses,…
The Great .ORG Heist
Sam Klein: Ethos Capital, a new commercial investment firm founded in the past few months in Boston, has 2 staff and only one major investment: a deal to acquire the 501c3 non-profit that currently runs the .org domain (valued at a few $B), for an undisclosed sum. This was initiated immediately after ICANN decided in May, over almost universal opposition, to…