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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

#121

Post by Traster »

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.

The US has done a fantastic job of legalizing its bribes. It's not bribery! It's lobbying! It's not corruption, it just happens to be that the guy in charge of the agency for co-ordinating economic policy is also the head of Goldman Sachs. It's not corruption, because we made it legal and so it can't be corruption, because we've redefined corruption. It's great!

This is one of the reasons why people around the world are a little sceptical of American exceptionalism.

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

#123

Post by woofcat »

darkwater wrote: post #96
onion2k wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their customers, if you think about it, are perhaps more likely to value what the domain stands for. Some of their customers perhaps. If you go back and look at what companies were doing with domains 20 years ago most medium and large enterprises bought .com, .org, .net and some country code tld domain because that's what everyone recommended "in case someone cybersquatted". I think behaviour has stopped now there ar…

.org customers are not businesses, it's the non-profit

As someone who owns .org domain names. That might be what it's for like .com is for commercial and .net is for networks. However that is not at all how they're used.

Perhaps by some percentage of them are registered non-profits. However not the majority.

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

#124

Post by tqkxzugoaupvwqr »

leibnitz27 wrote: post #118

I bought an org domain back in the 90s, and have been using it as my personal domain (i.e. also primary email address) ever since. While, granted, I was perhaps a little silly to go org (it seemed like a good idea back then!), it's mildly terrifying that my personal footprint on the web of 20+ years can now be held to ransom by a random VC firm, and to keep my own email address I might have to pay an additional $$$ a…

Extend your domain lease by 10 years at the current yearly fee. Gives you some time to migrate if you choose to.

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

#126

Post by evross »

cameldrv wrote: post #46
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…

The bigger issue is that org was given to PIR to manage in the public interest. It was not supposed to even be a moneymaker for ISOC, they were just supposed to be the stewards of .org in the public interest. The fact that it’s worth even $1 billion shows that they’re operating it in the interest of the ISOC and not the public interest. ICANN should simply create a new entity that will charge break-even fees for regi…

It's worth noting that the former ICANN CEO, Fadi Chehadé is highly involved in this sale. This timeline also seems to suggest that current members of ICANN are also biased towards the sale of the .org domain, ICANN may not be interested in the views of the people who currently have .org domains.

From https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2019/11/isoc-pir-.... :

"March 2019:

ICANN receives 3,300 comments uniformly opposed to the change and 6 in favor of removing price caps, and sides with the 0.2% minority.

May 2019:

PIR responded to the comments with an open letter that said,

“We are a mission-based non-profit, and would never betray the trust that you have put into .ORG and us.”

On 7 May, Chehadé registered the domain for EthosCapital.com.

On 13 May, ICANN decided to lift the price caps anyway.

On 14 May, Ethos Capital was incorporated as a new investment firm founded by Brooks. Ethos Capital has two staff: Brooks and Nora Abusitta-Ouri, a former ICANN SVP who later worked for Chehadé and was also a classmate of Chehadé."

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

#127

Post by evross »

evross wrote: post #126
cameldrv wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger issue is that org was given to PIR to manage in the public interest. It was not supposed to even be a moneymaker for ISOC, they were just supposed to be the stewards of .org in the public interest. The fact that it’s worth even $1 billion shows that they’re operating it in the interest of the ISOC and not the public interest. ICANN should simply create a new entity that will charge break-even fees for regi…

It's worth noting that the former ICANN CEO, Fadi Chehadé is highly involved in this sale. This timeline also seems to suggest that current members of ICANN are also biased towards the sale of the .org domain, ICANN may not be interested in the views of the people who currently have .org domains. From https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2019/11/isoc-pir-... . : "March 2019: ICANN receives 3,300 comments unifor…

I'd recommend going to https://savedotorg.org and sharing it if possible. There will be a public call through this campaign for people interested in learning more about this sale on December 5th at 12pm pacific time.

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

#128

Post by glitcher »

I find it very curious that NPR has not covered this story, _and_ that they are notably missing from the list of organizations that signed at savedotorg.org. Especially because they are a .org!

I mean, I'm not trying to imply it should be attributed to malice, but are they asleep at the wheel or what?

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

#129

Post by wpietri »

cameldrv wrote: post #46
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…

The bigger issue is that org was given to PIR to manage in the public interest. It was not supposed to even be a moneymaker for ISOC, they were just supposed to be the stewards of .org in the public interest. The fact that it’s worth even $1 billion shows that they’re operating it in the interest of the ISOC and not the public interest. ICANN should simply create a new entity that will charge break-even fees for regi…

Break-even pricing was my first thought, too. But I think the .org registry has to be priced at least modestly higher than business-y domains (e.g., .com), because otherwise you'll find people using it for all sorts of for-profit stuff, reducing its signalling value.

But there's no reason that money can't go right back into basic infrastructure. For example, after the Heartbleed bug we learned that OpenSSL was receiving about $2k/year in donations. Surely there are obvious core open-source projects that could use reliable funding: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/tech-...

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

#130

Post by jtbayly »

MrEldritch wrote: post #117
ohashi wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the internet. We don't forget things like this. People's names have been attached to it, like Andrew Sullivan (CEO) and Richard Barnes (board member defending it). We know exactly who fucked over everyone here, they admit it publicly. There's no pretending about it, Andrew was more than happy to sell out the non profit space. Just read the interview: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/29/isoc_ceo_dot_org_s…

This is the Internet. Everyone will have forgotten this besides, like, five people before this time 2020.

2020/tomorrow. FTFY
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