"But the .ORG registry still needs a faithful steward, because the Internet Society has made clear it no longer wants that responsibility."
Stopping the sale doesn't prevent a "distasteful" actor from acquiring it eventually. Definitely need to get on the road to picking a capable successor or else this will be for nothing.
> The sale threatened to bring censorship and increased operating costs to the nonprofit world. As EFF warned, a private equity-owned registry would have a financial incentive to suspend domain names—causing websites to go dark—at the request of powerful corporate interests and governments.
Exactly. That is the risk of what was going to happen had that went ahead.
> This decision by ICANN is a hard-fought victory for nonprofit Internet users. But the .ORG registry still needs a faithful steward, because the Internet Society has made clear it no longer wants that responsibility.
A triumphant victory to everyone involved in stopping this catastrophic sale.
I will also say that there is a group (other than nonprofits) that stood to lose massive amounts of money - domain speculators. Maybe ICANN should raise the fee to $100 per year for all domains? Then it would 90% less profitable to own a shitload of domains for speculation.
I'm told that CCOR doesn't plan on bidding in 2029 for .org (w/ or w/o Afilias) so this looks like a temporary thing at best. It doesn't look like there is a coherent alternative.
Honestly, ISOC was on this path after they eliminated trustee elections.
If Ethos Capital is still looking to put their investor money to work in a manner that does subscribe to the same ethos I hear usury pays well. Maybe payday lending is in their future?
My impression was that the only reason for Ethos Capital to exist was to hide that fact that key ISOC decision makers were giving .org at a bargain price to themselves and their buddies while getting rid of the pesky non-profit status at the same time. It doesn't actually have people with the skillset to manage an investment fund and will likely be wound down after failing its mission.
