If this is really the case, someone(s) very possibly took and gave bribes, and we're going to see Federal scrutiny all over this.
The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation
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Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation
#12Are registries allowed to charge different prices for different domain names?
E.g. can they ask google.com for $1B to renew and mygrandmascookiecompany.com for $20 to renew?
Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation
#13I wonder what the level of awareness of this is in the nonprofit community itself. Something like the National Council of Nonprofits would seem to be in a good position to file a suit or at least raise awareness among its members who might be interested in forming a class.
While a major charity like the Salvation Army certainly doesn’t care if a single, sub-$100 annual expense doubles or even goes up by a factor of ten, thousands of small organizations across the country might care enough to band together and take action.
Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation
#14Are registries allowed to charge different prices for different domain names? E.g. can they ask google.com for $1B to renew and mygrandmascookiecompany.com for $20 to renew?
In the case of .org, non-uniform renewal pricing is only allowed if "the applicable registrant expressly agreed in its registration agreement with registrar to higher Renewal Pricing at the time of the initial registration of the domain name following clear and conspicuous disclosure of such Renewal Pricing to such registrant"
So Ethos wouldn't be able to screw over existing registrants with non-uniform renewal pricing.
Source: Section 2.10(c) of https://www.icann.org/sites/default/files/tlds/org/org-agmt-...
Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation
#15Are registries allowed to charge different prices for different domain names? E.g. can they ask google.com for $1B to renew and mygrandmascookiecompany.com for $20 to renew?
This depends on the TLD (top level domain) in question.
For .com, .net, .org it has historically not been possible to price discriminate like this.
For the "new TLDs" (the explosion of new extensions we have seen in recent years), the registry contract is different and they are indeed allowed to do this. They call it "premium pricing".
Part of the big outcry about the recent changes to .org is that it brings it closer to the "new TLD" model, which disfavors the registrant.
Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation
#16> Take a page from the Donuts book: create multiple price tiers for popular domains, up to 100x the base rate. > Raise rates for long-time owners of common words. They weren’t using that premium space anyway. This is forbidden by the .org registry agreement, 2.10(c): https://www.icann.org/sites/default/files/tlds/org/org-agmt-...
And amazingly won't matter under the new owners who get to write their own rules. That's why everyone is upset. There was a vote that allowed .org to set whatever prices they wanted right before the sale.
Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation
#17The reason for this is because former Ethos members are involved with ICANN and are probably making money because of the sale
Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation
#18Related past threads: "Save .org": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21611677 "Take action to save .org": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21664582 "Why I Voted to Sell .org": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21656960 "ISOC sold the .org registry to Ethos Capital for $1.1B" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21667355
Dupe of "Take action to save .org" with some discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21677533
Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation
#19I wrote about this too - linked in the article. https://lancewiggs.com/2019/12/01/did-isoc-leave-1-billion-o... The travesty is that ISOC has given up a sure-fire stream of $55+ million/year in tax-free income, along with the ability to easily grow that to over $100m/year with price increases - all for just over $1.1 billion. As any r/personalfinance reader can tell you a rule of thumb for endowments is to spend a ma…
There ain’t nothing “sure-fire” in this world when it comes to income son. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Those armchair investors from reddit don’t know the situation .
Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation
#20I wrote about this too - linked in the article. https://lancewiggs.com/2019/12/01/did-isoc-leave-1-billion-o... The travesty is that ISOC has given up a sure-fire stream of $55+ million/year in tax-free income, along with the ability to easily grow that to over $100m/year with price increases - all for just over $1.1 billion. As any r/personalfinance reader can tell you a rule of thumb for endowments is to spend a ma…
There ain’t nothing “sure-fire” in this world when it comes to income son. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Those armchair investors from reddit don’t know the situation .
Most of your comments on HN today have been extremely condescending. Is 'xwdv a parody account? (Genuine question.)