ICANN races towards regulatory capture: the great .ORG heist

grarpamp grarpamp at gmail.com
Mon Nov 25 20:24:12 PST 2019


http://blogs.harvard.edu/sj/2019/11/23/a-tale-of-icann-and-regulatory-capture-the-dot-org-heist/

Internet could have moved root tld functions out
to fully distributed  coin / DHT / overlay  network
ages ago.


"
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 universal
opposition, to remove the price cap on .org registrations with no
meaningful protections for existing or future registrants.

This seems to violate a range of ethical, ICANN, ISOC, and non-profit
guidelines.  It is certainly the privatisation of a not-for-profit
monopoly into a for-profit one, which will benefit a few by
inconveniencing millions of others.  I have questions:

    Do affected parties have recourse?
    Other than polite letters, is anything being done?
    Why does Vint in particular think this is a good idea… ?
    Has anyone currently at ICANN + ISOC made substantive comment?

For more backstory, read on…
A brief history of  .org ....
"


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