PURE CRONYISM: .ORG Registry value pillaged by ICANN ex-CEO

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https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/20/org_registry_sale_shambles/

Tl,dr:

The suffix “org” on an internet address – and there are over 10 million of them – has become synonymous with non-profit organizations.

At the end of June this year, in a controversial decision made despite significant and vocal opposition, ICANN decided to lift price caps on .org domains for the next 10 years, paving the way for unlimited price increases on the 10 million .org domain names. That decision massively increased the value of the .org registry from millions to potentially billions of dollars.

 ICANN gave no explanation for moving ahead with the decision to lift caps despite the public opposition. It also carried out no economic analysis of the change, despite being aware that it could be worth billions of dollars.

At the end of last week, the Internet Society (ISOC) announced that it has sold the rights to the .org registry for an undisclosed sum to a private equity company called Ethos Capital.

Despite ISOC calling the purchaser Ethos Capital “a strong strategic partner that understands the intricacies of the domain industry,” no one in the internet industry had ever heard of the company when the sale was announced. Which wasn’t a surprise since it was established a few months earlier.

Former ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade personally registered the domain name currently used by Ethos Capital in May and it was registered as a limited company in the US state of Delaware on May 14. That date is significant because it is one day after ICANN indicated it was planning to approve the lifting of price caps through its public comment summary.

Fadi Chehade is almost certainly closely connected to the deal, and so is his long-term business associate Akram Atallah. Atallah worked for Chehade at his former company before becoming COO of ICANN in 2010. When the at-the-time CEO of ICANN left in 2012, Atallah became interim CEO and recommended his friend Chehade for the chief executive role. Chehade became ICANN’s CEO from 2012 to 2016. When Chehade left, Atallah again took over CEO duties until a new CEO was chosen.

With weeks of leaving ICANN, Chehade joined private equity firm Abry Partners where the managing partner was Eric Brooks. Brooks left Abry Partners earlier this year after 20 years with the company to become the founder and CEO of Ethos Capital.

And the "Fuck You, we do what we want because we can" final insult

“We believe many in the community see the long-term benefits of this deal. It will promote long-term financial security and more diversified funding for years to come to support the Internet Society’s vision that the Internet is for everyone; and PIR will be able to expand its mission to engage in purposeful work to advance important issues and further strengthen its commitment to the .org community.”

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[BADecker]

Radio and communications control by the government has paved the way for this^^. If there weren't any formal government controls, the people would regulate their own radio usage by supply and demand.

We would get a free internet where people could contact each other by radio without having an account. Simply tune in and you are there.

But that's too much freedom for you. The leaders can't suck any wealth off you if you are that free.

Btw, with a blockchain implementation of the Internet and all radio, freedom could be made to exist like this. You wouldn't need an account other than an address that was controlled by nobody... except you when you used it.

[theymos]

With Mozilla & Google now moving toward DNS over HTTPS, they could switch to a non-ICANN root zone, though that'd be pretty messy, sort of like a contentious hardfork of the DNS. I wonder if they've considered this, though.

I doubt that the .org registry will actually change anything except increasing prices.

[o_solo_miner]

As a owner of a .org domain, the "increasing price" will affect me also.
This will leed in a change of the domain, if it's get to hard.
With the downfall, loosing a "name", and users who are ending up in a
add parking (Sedo). But time will tell.

[tvbcof]

Anyone remember 'namecoin'?

Anyone heard of 'DNSCurve'?

I'm sure there are a lot of other innovative technologies which could be leveraged for a secure and decentralized service which would allow the world to ditch these greedy and duplicitous fuck-heads and their ancient, overpriced, and compromised systems.

...but I don't know of any since it's not something which I've had to pay any attention to in my retirement years.

[squatz1]

I'm guessing this comes from lobbying from the --domain lobby -- to be able to rise the price of domain prices and bring in more revenue for everyone. Because I think that  all of these companies are dealing with percentages and all stand to make a little bit more if they're able to raise prices on domains.

Though the only good thing in the world of competition and TONS AND TONS OF COMPANIES selling domains is the fact that companies are going to make it as cheap as possible to buy a domain due to competition from others in keeping and retaining customers. Capitalism, eh?

[amishmanish]

So an Ex-CEO who almost definitely knew that this Cap-lifting was coming registers a company which then goes on to buyout the right s to .org registry.
Doesn't that make it confidential information and conflict of interest? Isn't there supposed to be a law for board members to not utilize their position for personal gains? In most Govt departments I have seen, you are not allowed to bid for a contract if you are directly related to any officer over-seeing the purchase.