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The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

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Re: The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

#141

Post by dang »

bostonpete wrote: post #131
dang wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would add a lot of complexity, and any system has only a limited number of complexity cards to play. I'd rather play them on things that have a clear connection to HN's core. With features like this, the benefits are obvious while the costs are not. I fear those. That's not to say that tagging is always a bad idea—far from it. It depends on the system.

> I'd rather play them on things that have a clear connection to HN's core. What have they been played on historically? Mostly behind the scenes stuff? Maybe I don't pay close enough attention but I haven't noticed much in the way new features/improvements over the past five years or more...(?)

Yes, mostly behind the scenes stuff. And also just keeping powder dry, per our motto: Move slowly and preserve things.

Re: The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

#142

Post by JohnFen »

arkitaip wrote: post #21
iameli wrote: post #4

> Verisign controls the registries for .com and .net, two of the internet’s most popular. All it does is administer a database and collect small sums from website owners, but with computing power rising and practically no marginal cost to adding another website to the database, the entire enterprise is a license to print money. In the third quarter of 2019, Verisign showed operating income of $205.6 million on $308.4…

I suspect what the new gTLD program has really done is to make com/org/net seem even more trustworthy and premium because people can no longer keep up with the influx of new gTLDs ( all 1200 of them!).

I don't know about the general attitude, but I tend to view the nonstandard gTLDs as suspect, and tend to be hesitant to go to such sites.

Re: The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

#143

Post by koheripbal »

kick wrote: post #7

I found this article incredible (despite the tabloid-like headline) on this subject: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/14/icann_org_redacted/ TL;DR: Purchase funded by debt, includes another ex-ICANNer, will be done through four different companies. Some highlights that I think are important from it: Incredibly, the names of three directors of the organization that will buy the registry remain redacted in documen…

Purchasing with debt is pretty standard in finance, so I don't think there's anything useful in that factoid. ...also, if I controlled .org, I would also want to remain anonymous - there are crazy people out there on the internet.

I think the underlying problem is that this is being allowed at all. domains that we've registered as .org and hence expected non-interference with, are now under the control of a private corporation.

Re: The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

#144

Post by sgc »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #137
sgc wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd also love to see something indicating it is for big organizations only, which is patently false. Obviously it is irrelevant why it has that ethos as long as it in fact exists (if you want to pretend the general public doesn't see .org as generally indicating a service to humanity rather than a commercial venture, we can just agree to disagree). Also, in the doc you link it is clearly, evidently, for non-commercia…

I don't have a thing to say re: "big" vs "small" organizations using the ORG domain. Nor does the RFC say anything about it. (Perhaps someone else in the discussion was talking about organization size, but it wasn't me...) re: public perception vs. definition - I'm not "pretending" anything. The RFC doesn't call out that ORG is for not-for-profits, or for organizations related to any particular "ethos" or philosophy.…

It is specifically for "other" organizations, ie those that don't fall into the categories above. One of those categories is for-profit, ie commercial, organizations. It's not for all organizations including the above, but those that are not the above. It's pretty clear.

Re: The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

#145

Post by baligad »

iameli wrote: post #4

> Verisign controls the registries for .com and .net, two of the internet’s most popular. All it does is administer a database and collect small sums from website owners, but with computing power rising and practically no marginal cost to adding another website to the database, the entire enterprise is a license to print money. In the third quarter of 2019, Verisign showed operating income of $205.6 million on $308.4…

> the real answer to this

Alternatively, I like the concept of Tor onion services, where the "domains" are acquired in a permissionless fashion. Names are just randomly generated ed25519 strings so there's no squatting and your address never expires. If you want a vanity domain, you just commit compute time to brute force something human-readable. [1] The obvious drawback is that you have to be a Tor client, but if you manage your own DNS, you could use Tor's DNSPort mode as a kind of forwarding target for non-Tor clients on your lan. [2]

1: https://www.jamieweb.net/blog/onionv3-vanity-address/

2: https://www.grepular.com/Transparent_Access_to_Tor_Hidden_Se...

Re: The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

#146

Post by jrochkind1 »

coldpie wrote: post #134
jtl999 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not generally sympathetic to the "domain investor" types, but this quote from domain investor Rick Schwartz I feel is spot on and has been my thought since "day one" of the new TLDs > "As we go into the seventh year of the new gTLD experiment, they are meaningless. They haven’t been adopted by almost anybody. Circulation is poor. So many registrations are questionable or penny-promotional. The majority are parked…

Mostly the new gTLDs (actually I think the ccTLDs are at fault, but I'm going to whine anyway) mean I no longer know where to put the dots in a domain name. Is it CoolBanan.as? CoolBana.nas? Cool.Ban.an.as? Fuck it, I'm going to the grocery store instead.

Hey, can you pick up some cool bananas for me while you're there?

Re: The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

#147

Post by jtl999 »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #146
coldpie wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly the new gTLDs (actually I think the ccTLDs are at fault, but I'm going to whine anyway) mean I no longer know where to put the dots in a domain name. Is it CoolBanan.as? CoolBana.nas? Cool.Ban.an.as? Fuck it, I'm going to the grocery store instead.

Hey, can you pick up some cool bananas for me while you're there?

Yum

Re: The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

#148

Post by frandroid »

dang wrote: post #141
bostonpete wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd rather play them on things that have a clear connection to HN's core. What have they been played on historically? Mostly behind the scenes stuff? Maybe I don't pay close enough attention but I haven't noticed much in the way new features/improvements over the past five years or more...(?)

Yes, mostly behind the scenes stuff. And also just keeping powder dry, per our motto: Move slowly and preserve things.

I was tongue in cheek with my comment, but I enjoy JWZ's "previously" links and tags can help traverse the history that you're working to preserve.

The simplicity you mention is worth a lot, though.

Re: The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

#149

Post by getpost »

getpost wrote: post #30

There is a SaveDotOrg Protest at ICANN on Friday in Los Angeles. Date: Friday, January 24, 2020 Time: 9 am – 11 am Location: ICANN, 12025 Waterfront Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90094 https://savedotorg.org/index.php/savedotorg-protest-at-icann...

Update: Around 2 dozen people showed. ICANN received the petition. “Chairman Maarten Botterman said ICANN is looking at the impact of the sale and what guarantees they could obtain for dot-org registrants, though he made no promises.”

https://mobile.twitter.com/russforce/status/1220789586554523...

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/nonprofits-worry-s...

Re: The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

#150

Post by kortilla »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #38
teruakohatu wrote: post #2

It seems that over time any sufficiently well funded non-profit will eventually hire a financial engineer as CEO and transform into a Hedge Fund with some sort of charitable appendage.

America's well-endowed universities seem like a perfect example of human greed. They have amassed so much money that they could seriously invest in furthering their ostensible mission — education — yet they'd rather just obsess over making sure the big pile of money only grows bigger.

I’m not sure you understand the purpose of an endowment. It’s supposed to be such a large pile of money that the institution can exist purely off of low risk gains without draining the principle.
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