Controversial Sale of .Org Domain Manager Faces Review At ICANN (arstechnica.com)
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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: ICANN is reviewing the pending sale of the .org domain manager from a nonprofit to a private equity firm and says it could try to block the transfer. The .org domain is managed by the Public Internet Registry (PIR), which is a subsidiary of the Internet Society, a nonprofit. The Internet Society is trying to sell PIR to private equity firm Ethos Capital. ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) said last week that it sent requests for information to PIR in order to determine whether the transfer should be allowed. "ICANN will thoroughly evaluate the responses, and then ICANN has 30 additional days to provide or withhold its consent to the request," the organization said.
ICANN, which is also a nonprofit, previously told the Financial Times that it "does not have authority over the proposed acquisition," making it seem like the sale was practically a done deal. But even that earlier statement gave ICANN some wiggle room. ICANN "said its job was simply to 'assure the continued operation of the .org domain' -- implying that it could only stop the sale if the stability and security of the domain-name infrastructure were at risk," the Financial Times wrote on November 28. In its newer statement last week, ICANN noted that the .org registry agreement between PIR and ICANN requires PIR to "obtain ICANN's prior approval before any transaction that would result in a change of control of the registry operator." The registry agreement lets ICANN request transaction details "including information about the party acquiring control, its ultimate parent entity, and whether they meet the ICANN-adopted registry operator criteria (as well as financial resources, and operational and technical capabilities)," ICANN noted. ICANN's 30-day review period begins after PIR provides those details.
ICANN said it will apply "a standard of reasonableness" when determining whether to allow the change in control over the .org domain, but it "might ultimately have to be determined by the courts," notes Domain Name Wire.
ICANN, which is also a nonprofit, previously told the Financial Times that it "does not have authority over the proposed acquisition," making it seem like the sale was practically a done deal. But even that earlier statement gave ICANN some wiggle room. ICANN "said its job was simply to 'assure the continued operation of the .org domain' -- implying that it could only stop the sale if the stability and security of the domain-name infrastructure were at risk," the Financial Times wrote on November 28. In its newer statement last week, ICANN noted that the .org registry agreement between PIR and ICANN requires PIR to "obtain ICANN's prior approval before any transaction that would result in a change of control of the registry operator." The registry agreement lets ICANN request transaction details "including information about the party acquiring control, its ultimate parent entity, and whether they meet the ICANN-adopted registry operator criteria (as well as financial resources, and operational and technical capabilities)," ICANN noted. ICANN's 30-day review period begins after PIR provides those details.
ICANN said it will apply "a standard of reasonableness" when determining whether to allow the change in control over the .org domain, but it "might ultimately have to be determined by the courts," notes Domain Name Wire.
Dupe story with 2nd party sources (Score:4, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:3)
The standard is important (Score:2)
In common law (and specifically in Canada, where I live), the reasonableness standard means "the reviewing court defers to the administrative decision-maker and limits its review to an inquiry as to whether the impugned decision is intelligible, transparent, and justified, as well as within the range of possible outcomes given the applicable facts and law in question" https://ablawg.ca/2018/07/23/t... [ablawg.ca]
Saying one is choosing a reasonableness standard is less strict than a "correctness" standard, where "the
Rubber stamp (Score:5, Interesting)
ICANN is not going to prevent the sale. ICANN is the root of the problem. The board does whatever their crony friends want them to do, conveniently pointing the finger at "ICANN staff" for producing a recommendation when something is unpopular. Unless you played LAX in private school with someone on ICANN's board, ICANN might as well be Kafka's Castle.
Behind the scenes, Verisign (and it's largest shareholders e.g. Berkshire Hathaway) want to see price caps removed from .com. The best way to do that is with a test case like .org.
Registry prices for .com, .net, and .org domains have increased over the past 15 years, a time when the cost to provide registry services should have fallen. Ask yourself, what is the marginal cost of a database entry? Add to that a small amount for running the tld's nameservers and dealing with dos attacks. You'll quickly realize registry operators are overcompensated; further they are defacto monopolies and act like monopolists.
Re: (Score:3)
It's not controversial. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Except: the seller is a non-profit organization, with many members. They have also been granted provenance for critical parts of the Internet under federal contracts involving federal funding, and international treaties. There are also many thousands if not millions of existing clients of these services with contracts in place. So it involves a few more parties than "the buyer" and "the seller".
How about: (Score:2)
NO
Block it? Yeah, right (Score:2)
This is just fucking window dressing, nothing more. Pull back the curtain and see who's running the show and why.