Andre Sullivan of ISOC needs to resign. ISOC international needs to get rebuild based on integrity and trust.
Why I Voted to Sell .ORG
271–280 of 316 posts
Re: Why I Voted to Sell .ORG
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
PIR is abandoning its nonprofit status anyways, to become B corporation instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Interest_Registry
They are becoming a company, but they haven't committed to become a B Corp. only to "explore" the certification. Like I "explore" using my phone less. ;) Also becoming a B corp is different from getting the certification. the latter is just a reporting standard.
Bcorp doesn’t mean much. Add some stuff to the bylaws. Doesn’t mean they actually have to follow them. The Honest Company is a BCorp and still had multiple class actions against it and hundreds of FTC complaints.
Re: Why I Voted to Sell .ORG
#273I don’t understand how this “sale” is legal in the first place. PIR is a legal 501(c)3 nonprofit. You can’t really sell a nonprofit to a for-profit company except in unusual and rare circumstances. In California, I know you need a letter from the state Attorney General to do so. There are also federal restrictions on sales like this, particularly around self-dealing transactions. This transaction was obviously self d…
> PIR is a legal 501(c)3 nonprofit. You can’t really sell a nonprofit to a for-profit company except in unusual and rare circumstances.
Not true. Shareholders are not required to be non-profit.
> There are also federal restrictions on sales like this, particularly around self-dealing transactions. This transaction was obviously self dealing.
How ? And corporate law is state law not federal. Feds only regulate securities not corporate governance of private companies. This is also not a tax concern. Do you really think they did not consult tax attorneys ?
> Someone seriously needs to dig into this. The PIR board members could be in big legal trouble. And also ICANN, which is a 501(c)3 nonprofit as well and is subject to self-dealing restrictions.
There's nothing going on here. And really is the world coming to an end if in the worst case scenario 10 years from now a nonprofit pays $26 a year for a domain rather than $10. Any nonprofit is going to have other expenses much higher than this. There are more important things to worry about.
> This is obvious, plain as day corruption. In the business world, not much can be done. But these are two nonprofits (PIR and ICANN), so something can and should be done. These kind of transactions aren’t normally legal.
Hyperbole again. Where is the backup for ,"not normally legal"? All other statements made are demonstrably false.
Re: Why I Voted to Sell .ORG
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
.org registry was already a pretty good cash cow. According to their tax return[1], in 2018 they grossed ~$93m over ~$33m registry administration expense, ~$7m employee compensation (interestingly there's a 30% year over year increase here), and some other smaller expenses. They raised $48.7m for Internet Society. Note that out of registry administration expense, $18.1m went to Afilias[2] (this should also be in the…
As you said, according to the 2018 tax return revenues from PIR running .org resulted in $48,000,000.00 in cash grants handed over to the Internet Society. How much is the sale worth? That $48M Grant was worth more than Internet Society's total revenue in 2016 according to wkipedia. ISOC just sold a sustainable $50Million revenue stream. If LetsEncrypt copped a $0.10 fee per certificate, how much would it cost for Ri…
> If LetsEncrypt copped a $0.10 fee per certificate, how much would it cost for Richard to rubber stamp a Symantec acquisition of LetsEncrypt?
Easy now, don't give him ideas.
Re: Why I Voted to Sell .ORG
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are becoming a company, but they haven't committed to become a B Corp. only to "explore" the certification. Like I "explore" using my phone less. ;) Also becoming a B corp is different from getting the certification. the latter is just a reporting standard.
Bcorp doesn’t mean much. Add some stuff to the bylaws. Doesn’t mean they actually have to follow them. The Honest Company is a BCorp and still had multiple class actions against it and hundreds of FTC complaints.
You can also just stop being one when it becomes inconvenient. That's what Etsy did.
Re: Why I Voted to Sell .ORG
#276“Limiting price increases to only 10% per year”
Let that sink in for a minute. In only 10 years, it’s going to cost 10x what it does today to register A NAME.
Technology was supposed to prevent things like this, not enable it.
Re: Why I Voted to Sell .ORG
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's worse than naive. His two points are in impossible conflict. He wanted a pile of money for the Internet Society, enough to "secure that work's future". But the only way selling .org is worth a pile of money is if it gets extracted from nonprofits. With plenty of profits left over to feed the investors who put up the initial cash. If the Internet Society wanted to secure their future, they should have rai…
Why could the Internet Society not have been the one raising prices by 10% ad infinitum. Need capital? Borrow it and pledge .org as security. There’s basically unlimited funds available in this manner because the .org cashflow stream is as reliable as anything. How naive indeed. What a shame.
Because they are a non-profit who can't pay themselves ridiculous salaries. Instead, they can now work at Ethos and draw ridiculous salaries.
Re: Why I Voted to Sell .ORG
#278One of the big issues with this post is that it is trying to sell the terms of the deal.
But the issue people have with it in the Internet Policy Community is not the terms, which we no nothing about.
It is that the way it was done is a radical departure from how decisions are normally made.
Usually you start by saying "I have a problem". In this case it would be "We don't want to run .ORG anymore."
And then you engage the community in an open bottom-up consultative process to come up with the optimal solution.
ISOC applied to run .ORG in 2002. They won a competition to run it against 10 other groups. Here is the original application they submitted to ICANN:
https://archive.icann.org/en/tlds/org/applications/isoc/
They said things like:
"PIR will institute mechanisms for promoting the registry's operation in a manner that is responsive to the needs, concerns, and views of the non-commercial Internet user community."
And:
".ORG is the home of non-commercial entities on the Internet"
https://archive.icann.org/en/tlds/org/applications/isoc/sect...
After running .ORG since 2002, and growing it to over 10 million domains under management under this promise, ISOC's Board suddenly and with no prior consultation, decided to privatize it. They took that decision in a private negotiation over less than 3 months.
That decision making process is not how the Internet maintains a stable and secure infrastructure. It needs careful decision making to ensure reliable, stable, and resilient operations.
Re: Why I Voted to Sell .ORG
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
Following unpopular laws is itself a consensus, one where abandoning the rule of law altogether is seen as more harmful than enforcing one unpopular ruling.
How is it a consensus when people on the losing side often respond with violence, riots or protests? Lacking effective means to overthrow the government hardly implies agreement.
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Re: Why I Voted to Sell .ORG
#280The Netherlands chapter of the ISOC is objecting to the .ORG sale ( https://domainnamewire.com/tag/internet-society/ ):
We believe that the 2019 decision of ISOC Global to sell PIR to private equity firm Ethos Capital is not in line with ICANN’s criteria from 2002 and the subsequent promise from ISOC Global. Despite ISOC Global’s assurances to the contrary, we share the misgivings of the international community about giving a single privately owned entity the power to raise tariffs, implement rights protection mechanisms possibly leading to censorship, and suspend domains at the request of local governments. We also fear that ISOC Global’s reputation has been severely harmed by even contemplating this transaction.
We therefore call on ISOC Global’s leadership to reverse this decision immediately, and do its utmost to restore faith in ISOC as the one global organisation that through its many professionals and dedicated volunteers sincerely strives for an internet for everyone.