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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

#31

Post by freddie_mercury »

TomMckenny wrote: post #27

Honest question: since .org is relied on world wide, why are just two US state courts the only ones with the legal power to review the sale?

You've got the causality backwards. It isn't "the whole word uses this, so we decided to put two US state courts in charge of it".

It was "only two US state courts are in charge of it but the whole world decided to start using it anyway".

No one forced anyone to use the US DNS system. They all knew what they were signing up for when they joined the public internet in the 80s and 90s and haven't spend any time or money lobbying for a change.

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#32

Post by Scoundreller »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #21
lancewiggs wrote: post #3

I 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…

Exchanging 10 to 20 years of potential revenue for a flat check seems like a pretty good deal.

Agreed. A p/e of 20 isn't bad. S̶t̶o̶c̶k̶ ̶m̶a̶r̶k̶e̶t̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶1̶5̶ ̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶n̶o̶w̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶f̶a̶r̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶d̶i̶v̶e̶r̶s̶i̶f̶i̶e̶d̶.̶ Oops, stock market is 20-25 right now.

There's so many TLDs today, the ability to raise prices isn't what it was.

Though they could 5x prices and even if they lost 60% of their business, they'll come out ahead. I could understand the worries of .org holders.

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#33

Post by freddie_mercury »

zapita wrote: post #7
lalaland1125 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could have sold bonds (raised money via debt) as an alternative to selling .org. They probably would have gotten a good yield considering the stability of the .org revenue stream.

But would buyers of national bonds consider buying debt from a non-government entity? Would they be willing and able to model the investment without a good understanding of the Internet industry?

They buy trillions of bonds from GSEs every day. This wouldn't be any different. Agency debt is a well understood thing.

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#34

Post by metasj »

agwa wrote: post #8

> 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-...

Ah, thanks -- you're right, the second is prohibited; corrected. The first seems fine per 2.10(c) as long as the registrant agrees on first registration that renewals will be expensive.

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#35

Post by formercoder »

xwdv wrote: post #19
lancewiggs wrote: post #3

I 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 .

That's why cash flows are discounted at the cost of capital - it's a quantitative decision.

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#37

Post by mlyle »

metasj wrote: post #34
agwa wrote: post #8

> 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-...

Ah, thanks -- you're right, the second is prohibited; corrected. The first seems fine per 2.10(c) as long as the registrant agrees on first registration that renewals will be expensive.

Registrant can negotiate with ICANN to make their own terms at expiration of the agreement.

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#38

Post by TheRealPomax »

romaaeterna wrote: post #11

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.

No, we won't. Not unless you help set that in motion. Have you contacted the DA already?

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#40

Post by 4ntonius8lock »

lancewiggs wrote: post #3

I 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…

I appreciate your excellent write up. When I read the allegations in the original article I kinda wanted more detail. You break it down very well with great attention to detail.

I'd like to place this here for those who only read comments:

.org registry rights belong to a non-profit - the rights were sold to a private equity group - somewhere between 50% and 90% below market rate. It was based on self dealing of the people given stewardship of the non-profit that manages .org

Basically, this is privatization Russian style. Not good. Even if you like privatization, no-bid stuff is just wrong.

Want to help support the democratic institutions which hopefully won't fail us? Look here: https://drewdevault.com/2019/11/29/dotorg.html

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