Please sign the petition - https://savedotorg.org/ Any shares on social media are appreciated. The 2019 .ORG Registry Agreement represents a significant departure from .ORG’s 34-year history. It gives the registry the power to make several policy decisions that would be detrimental to the .ORG community: The power to raise .ORG registration fees without the approval of ICANN or the .ORG community. A .ORG price hike would put many cash-strapped NGOs in the difficult position of either paying the increased fees or losing the legitimacy and brand recognition of a .ORG domain. The power to develop and implement Rights Protection Mechanisms unilaterally, without consulting the .ORG community . If such mechanisms are not carefully crafted in collaboration with the NGO community, they risk censoring completely legal nonprofit activities. The power to implement processes to suspend domain names based on accusations of “activity contrary to applicable law.” The .ORG registry should not implement such processes without understanding how state actors frequently target NGOs with allegations of illegal activity. A registry could abuse these powers to do significant harm to the global NGO sector, intentionally or not. We cannot afford to put them into the hands of a private equity firm that has not earned the trust of the NGO community. .ORG must be managed by a leader that puts the needs of NGOs over profits. More Info - (Internet world despairs as non-profit .org sold for $$$$ to private equity firm, price caps axed) https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/20/org_registry_sale_shambles/ (Girl Scouts join protest over sale of .org domain) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50515786 (ICA Calls for ICANN to Withhold Approval of Purported .Org Registry Sale) https://www.internetcommerce.org/ic...hold-approval-of-purported-org-registry-sale/ (.Org Deal: Esther Dyson is “Appalled”) https://domaininvesting.com/org-deal-esther-dyson-is-appalled/
@bmugford thank you for creating this thread. It's a very serious matter. Petition signed. Individuals can sign petition at https://savedotorg.org/index.php/join-us-in-sending-this-letter/#letter
Yes until they do the same to .com and base your renewal fee per domain on your annual turnover or just reclassify your domain as premium. This has to be stopped.
Supposedly the price tag for the .org extension has been $1.135 billion dollars, considering that there are around 10 million .org domains registered that means each .org domain owner has to pay around $110 dollars extra in order for the $1.135 billion to be recouped. Whether that $110 dollar increase in registration and renewal fees of .org is going to take place over the next ten years or all at once should be of real concern. All extensions are being treated as a cash cow (including .com) without anyone (ICANN) asking what the registries are doing in return for the extra fees (Taxes) that they can now arbitrarily impose on people. Now that the total number of all domains registered has exceeded 300 million the registration and renewal fees have to actually decrease across the board (or at least for .com and .org) instead of increasing. IMO
Unfortunately the general public will not care until they 10x or even 100x the price. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/29/isoc_ceo_dot_org_sale/
There is an event tomorrow on this deal. I encourage people to take part. https://www.nten.org/events/?event-id=a0l1U000002y52lQAA You can send questions to - [email protected] I submitted the following list - 1.) How was removing the .ORG price caps beneficial to the 10M+ registrants? 2.) How is this deal to sell the .ORG operating rights beneficial to the same 10M+ registrants? 3.) Would this deal have been made if the price caps were not removed? 4.) What is the timeline of events that lead to this deal? Why were the registry operating rights not put out for a public bid? Why are so many former ICANN leadership and insiders connected to this deal with a brand-new private equity firm? 5.) Does ICANN need to sign off on this deal, or do they claim to be "powerless" to stop the transfer of a contract even when they are the only other party? If that is ICANN's stance then what protections are in place for these registrants when it comes to pricing or censorship? "Trust us" is not a protection. The registry could easily later be resold to another party with far different policies. It could lead to de facto censorship via pricing or other registry polices.
Some new developments - https://domainnamewire.com/2019/12/10/icann-delays-org-sale-approval-calls-for-more-transparency/ ICANN notes: ICANN will thoroughly evaluate the responses and then ICANN has 30 additional days to provide or withhold its consent to the request. The Registry Agreement requires a standard of reasonableness for ICANN’s determination. In a letter, ICANN General Counsel Jeff Jeffrey wrote (pdf): As you, Andrew, ISOC’s CEO stated publicly during a webcast meeting in which you participated on 5 December 2019, you are uncomfortable with the lack of transparency. Many of us watching the communications on this transaction are also uncomfortable.
Anyone concerned about this matter should read the posted link. Good read, lots of questions regarding the deal, too few answers!
Thank you for all the information and efforts @bmugford along with the efforts of others. I signed the petition and tweeted to urge others to do the same. Bob
