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How We Saved Dot Org

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Re: How We Saved Dot Org

#21

Post by brandur »

Another great win for the EFF. We shouldn't forget how much time and effort fighting this kind of thing takes, and we are very lucky to have an organization who's willing to put in the legwork from which all of us are huge beneficiaries. (Edit: just donated.)

I guess it was implied by the article, but wasn't perfectly clear to me: does this mean that .org just stays with its current holders, ISOC? (Internet Society)

As much as ICANN and Ethos Capital acted maliciously in this whole debacle, it's very possible that the most malicious actor of all was ISOC. In 2002 they were granted the management of a public good (the .org registry), with the idea that they'd administrate it responsibly and fairly. In return, they were well compensated as they managed .org registrations over all these years, which is more or less a license to print money.

However, it's obvious with this attempted sales that ISOC never considered themselves to be a higher-minded steward doing anything for the greater good. To them, .org was an asset to be pumped and dumped at the first, best offer that came along. They were well aware that Ethos had plans to turn .org into a major profit center with a captive audience of all existing .org holders, to the detriment of tens of thousands of non-profits (and many others) worldwide, and enthusiastically agreed to the plan anyway. It was money in their pocket, and the money was good.

What would it take for the ICANN to claw back the .org registry and grant it to a more ethical caretaker? (CCOR for example [1].) It seems to me that "easy come, easy go" is a perfect ethos for this situation, and the ISOC shouldn't be allowed to take another dime from .org.

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[1] https://www.ccor.org/

Re: How We Saved Dot Org

#22

Post by noizejoy »

mr_toad wrote: post #20
noizejoy wrote: post #14

Seems like a nice victory in a single battle. But in the context of a much larger war in the TLD space it doesn’t seem like domain registrants are winning: https://domainnamewire.com/2020/11/19/donuts-is-acquiring-af... EDIT to add: http://domainincite.com/26107-westerdal-offloads-two-more-gt...

Maybe the best outcome will be that Donuts gobbles up everything, gets sued for being an illegal monopoly, broken up, and then the whole sordid registry system can be replaced.

Now you have me curious - what kind of better replacement do you have in mind?

Re: How We Saved Dot Org

#23

Post by ineedasername »

breck wrote: post #10

Ah yes, bravo EFF, you've won another battle barely keeping us at the status quo. When are you going to stop playing whack-a-mole trying to defend against every assault on internet freedoms and go on the offensive and try to win the game for the good guys? We now have the ability to give the poorest child on earth access to the same information as the richest, and yet we allow industry to shackle us instead. It's tim…

If the EFF has to play whack-a-mole it's because there is no one single problem or threat vector to internet freedoms. Going on the offensive would require just as much whack-a-mole, fighting battles on many fronts, because there is no single issue they could fight for & win that would resolve the entire picture.

And in the case of the .ORG issue, what would going on the offensive even have looked like? How would the EFF have fought off an attempt by a private equity firm to obtain & abuse stewardship over the TLD?

Re: How We Saved Dot Org

#24

Post by Tostino »

rodone wrote: post #11
nso wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone counts their holdings in USD. That price difference may be what sets a launched and abandoned project apart. One of my neighbors is 17 and interested in coding and computers. I'd say their family MAYBE brings in 250 USD a month -- but probably less. A dollar can be a lot.

Yeah, let's get private equity involved, that'll make it cheaper for sure.

What is this in reference to?

Re: How We Saved Dot Org

#25

Post by lvs »

eps wrote: post #2

No formal investigation into the ICANN corruption that led to this situation in the first place?

There's no way this is a durable win without some thorough investigation, post mortem about how this nearly happened, and corrective actions.

Re: How We Saved Dot Org

#26

Post by longtailofsighs »

techsupporter wrote: post #8
longtailofsighs wrote: post #7

I love a lot of what the EFF does, but this campaign, and many other organizations involved in it got a lot wrong. The real issue, that in fairness the EFF leads with, was the change in the .org contract, not the sale itself. The most robust overview of the whole thing that I have read can be found here: https://www.internetgovernance.org/2020/05/01/no-real-winner... Whether people like it or not the operation of the…

> Whether people like it or not the operation of the DNS, including .org, is a commercial endeavor. It's about disparate impact, as is the case in many things that have extensive histories around them. That .org was allowed to drift from its original mission of being the "catch-all / noncommercial" zone of the DNS doesn't mean we shouldn't work to nudge it back to that original ideal. At a minimum, allowing what is a…

I don't disagree that the DNS is a public good. And fascinatingly unique in that it's global public good, reasonably successfully managed without government intervention.

If the barricading is in reference to price increases, then again it's not the acquisition that enabled this, it was the contract change with ICANN. Registries transfer ownership all the time. .Biz was acquired by GoDaddy this year, and Afilias who run .info as well as the technical backend for .org was acquired by Donuts. No one made a fuss about these, which is another reason why the .org upset feels arbitrary. Is there something inherently bad with those acquisitions?

I'm not sure I understand the drifting comment. .Org continues to position itself as a place for everyone. It's not clear to me what policies you think are drifting from that.

What I think people continue to miss is that by and large the Registry is far, far less involved in the life of any particular domain than the Registrar. Their policy choices, pressure points, and regulatory requirements are substantially more impactful than those of the Registry.

Re: How We Saved Dot Org

#27

Post by agwa »

longtailofsighs wrote: post #7

I love a lot of what the EFF does, but this campaign, and many other organizations involved in it got a lot wrong. The real issue, that in fairness the EFF leads with, was the change in the .org contract, not the sale itself. The most robust overview of the whole thing that I have read can be found here: https://www.internetgovernance.org/2020/05/01/no-real-winner... Whether people like it or not the operation of the…

> Registrars not Registries are the real place to try and protect Registrants

This makes zero sense. There is robust competition among registrars and since it's easy to change registrars, registrars have a disincentive to screw over registrants. In contrast, registries have registrants completely over the barrel because you can't change registry without giving up your domain name. So registries are absolutely the place where registrants need to be protected.

Re: How We Saved Dot Org

#28

Post by TaylorAlexander »

breck wrote: post #10

Ah yes, bravo EFF, you've won another battle barely keeping us at the status quo. When are you going to stop playing whack-a-mole trying to defend against every assault on internet freedoms and go on the offensive and try to win the game for the good guys? We now have the ability to give the poorest child on earth access to the same information as the richest, and yet we allow industry to shackle us instead. It's tim…

I agree with your goals. I absolutely want to both reduce the strength of copyright restrictions and encourage a culture of open access IP (aka open source, FLOSS, etc).

That said, the tone of your comment isn’t generally appreciated on HN. The sarcasm can promote unhealthy discussion, and the use of hashtags is odd since HN doesn’t use hashtags.

I hope you will continue to talk about problems with IP restrictions without resorting to this kind of cynical sarcasm. It’s an important idea and when presented well could help change some minds here.

Re: How We Saved Dot Org

#29

Post by macintux »

breck wrote: post #10

Ah yes, bravo EFF, you've won another battle barely keeping us at the status quo. When are you going to stop playing whack-a-mole trying to defend against every assault on internet freedoms and go on the offensive and try to win the game for the good guys? We now have the ability to give the poorest child on earth access to the same information as the richest, and yet we allow industry to shackle us instead. It's tim…

You're upset that the EFF isn't able to work miracles?

Abolishing intellectual property (which, frankly, sounds like a terrible idea) would be a global effort requiring the invalidation of treaties and battling a nearly infinite war chest because the wealthiest companies in the world rely on it.

Re: How We Saved Dot Org

#30

Post by longtailofsighs »

geofft wrote: post #17
longtailofsighs wrote: post #7

I love a lot of what the EFF does, but this campaign, and many other organizations involved in it got a lot wrong. The real issue, that in fairness the EFF leads with, was the change in the .org contract, not the sale itself. The most robust overview of the whole thing that I have read can be found here: https://www.internetgovernance.org/2020/05/01/no-real-winner... Whether people like it or not the operation of the…

This is like saying "Whether people like it or not the King of France is sovereign." Why is the operation of the DNS a commercial endeavor, and what would go wrong if it were not be the case? There are a huge number of examples of successful internet infrastructure projects that are non-commercial, perhaps with commercial participants or sponsors but not commercial themselves. (The IETF, Let's Encrypt, and Linux all…

This why is a choice made by the NTIA in the late 90s, I think. And, to be fair, the coordination of the DNS via ICANN is a non-commercial affair.

I just don't think it's worth entertaining the idea of trying to de-commercialize the operation of the DNS. You've got about ~450 families of gtld Registrars, some 200 or so Registries including behemoths like Verisign. All with contracts, obligations, shareholders, infrastructure etc. You can't put that genie back in the bottle, or at least not without a myriad of consequences.

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