
Internet world despairs as non-profit .org sold to private equity firm - ohashi
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/20/org_registry_sale_shambles/
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dharma1
Previously discussed here -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21582622](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21582622)

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feb
The article by The Register goes into way more details about the colusions
between members of ICANN and Ethos Capitals.

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dang
Ok, we've taken the [dupe] tag off this one.

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coderintherye
I think this buries the lead a bit, the real story is that the aforementioned
private equity firm is connected to (e.g. domain name was registered by) the
former CEO of ICANN.

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hhas01
I'm shocked, shocked to find that graft is going on in here!

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lioeters
Me too. I wasn't happy about the sale of .org TLD, but this!

> 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.

That seems like a textbook definition of "graft".

The article also describes several people involved in this whole deal,
shuffling among ICANN, Donuts, PIR ("public interest", sure..), Ethos Capital
("ethos", sure..) - which sounds like a textbook definition of "regulatory
capture".

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akdor1154
Jesus fuck this is disgusting.

Why do cries of "free market!!1" always seem to end up meaning "I want to
profit at the expense of the public good"?

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wesammikhail
> Why do cries of "free market!!1" __always__ seem to end up meaning "I want
> to profit at the expense of the public good"?

Jeez, I wonder how many calories you burn each day by jumping into
conclusions...

The entire internet was built by free market ethos in the sense that it was a
network of people doing what they thought was best for them and their causes.
But ofc, that´s not as important now is it? after all, once the fruits of the
free market ripens, somehow the rules change and suddenly "public good" means
whatever people want it to mean as long as it extracts value in their favor.

Now don´t get me wrong, I dislike this .org bullshit as much as the next guy,
but imagine if I would have said:

Why do cries of "public good!!1" __always__ end up meaning "I want to abolish
all profits and usher in the marxist utopia"?

It would be utterly stupid of me to say that because that is not the case, and
the same goes for your statement.

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ausbah
The internet started as a government program, and so much for a "free market"
when monopolistic ISPs control access to it.

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OJFord
Woah this is way worse than the headline implies - I thought 'non-profit .org
sold' meant one unlucky charity that forgot to renew its domain, not the whole
TLD!

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smitty1e
The non-profit nature of .org should be a major political issue.

Or we'll end up with a global Social Credit system.

Or, well, Orwell.

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Smithalicious
Is this some kind of joke I'm missing? Does the freedom of our society rely on
the .org TLD?

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hamilyon2
Not the gp, but I see .org tld sale as a major breach of trust. Names are
very, very serious business in internet.

What is next? .gov domain sale to unscrupulous private firm based on Bahamas?
Per-nation dns systems without respect to each other whatsoever and resulting
collapse of https, since it is based on dns?

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throw0101a
From the section "Opaque decision-making":

> _Adding to the frustration is the fact that 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. Unusually for such a high-
> profile issue, the decision was also made by the organization’s staff rather
> than its board._

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goatinaboat
I am old enough to remember when .com .net .org and so on had real meanings.
But those days are long, long gone. When was the last time any registrar ever
refused to issue a name based on the nature of the entity requesting it?

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dragonwriter
> When was the last time any registrar ever refused to issue a name based on
> the nature of the entity requesting it?

Unlike .org, .gov has actually gotten tighter since the early days for new
registrations, though they didn't push the legacy non-federal sites off.

.edu has also gotten more, not less, restrictive, IIRC.

And .ngo, .mil, .int have clear and enforced meanings.

A lot of newer domains do, too, though not always by type of entity.

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twgrp
I know people will think I'm trolling, but here it goes: why does it matter if
they bump up the prices, when there are lots of TLDs to choose from, and the
differences in price aren't that big?

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ClearAndPresent
Addressed in the article - you did read the article, didn't you? - but:

a) brand entrenchment - it's difficult to get organisations to rebrand

But much more importantly

b) the entire ethos goes against the sociological and ethical values of the
.org TLD and those who chose it to represent their entities.

Also the deal appears to have been done immorally, in bad faith, with timed
offers based upon insider knowledge by individuals who stepped out of one job
into another of conflicting interest.

Not everything is about individual prices.

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maxerickson
The supposed ethos. They done shown who they are.

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ClearAndPresent
Also, the wicked irony of them calling themselves Ethos Capital.

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maxerickson
I was talking about the folks that sold the TLD.

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ohashi
Internet Society and their CEO Andrew Sullivan are just as responsible for
this. Let's name names.

