debate The fight for .ORG: is it about MONEY or is it about CONTROL?

[Rob Monster]

As some here are aware, I previously presented the bullish case for .ORG:

https://www.namepros.com/threads/why-i-am-bullish-on-org-plutocratic-guilt.1161692/

Although I remain bullish on the .ORG TLD as a domain asset class, there is now a footnote on .ORG because of the change of control event and the precedent that it represents for a major registry.

In the wake of organized backlash against the Ethos/PIR.org deal from capable organizations such as EFF, it appears that propagandists are makeing a case for "nothing to see here". For example note this article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/opinion/dot-org-domain.html

This article was written by a Stanford undergrad with a Stanford prof as the byline. Fade Chehade is a Stanford alum. This looks like a propaganda instrument. In fact, I put the odds at 90:10 on that.

Ultimately, I am not convinced that this is not about money. After all, Donuts is not exactly killing it since Abry took over. However, they now control a whopping 242 TLDs. These people are not stupid nor are they lazy.

Fadi is a globalist and an elite technocrat. He has a keen understanding of power, governance and realpolitik. I believe he is entirely sincere about what he thinks it is at stake. Check out his short TED interview:

https://www.ted.com/talks/fadi_cheh...itizens_can_do_to_claim_power_on_the_internet

The timing of this talk was curious. September 2018 is when the digital censorship programs went into overdrive. As some folks know, I was on the front line of that when Godaddy booted Gab.

Fadi wants "Geneva conventions", "technocratic oaths" and "stewards" for acceptable use.

Fadi also comments on Artificial Intelligence. He is absolutely right. Most folks have no idea how much impact AI combined with structured data, wireless broadband, and open standards is going to change the word.

People with access to domains, hosting and vast libraries of open source code, are capable of wielding remarkable things. The tools are already amazing. I believe AI is also in the process of being democratized.

As power of internet publishing gravitates to individuals, the framework for governance on the Internet comes down to the gatekeepers, of which domain registries play a critical role for at least the next 10 years.

Blockchain is plodding along to create a decentralized alternative. It is not ready for prime time yet. However, domains can become more resilient. That is where Epik is focused.

Now that the main industry pundits have had their commentary on .ORG, I am curious to hear what the open source community has to say about the .ORG transaction and its implications. Let's hear it.

 

[Internet.Domains]

There is a difference between capitalism and crony capitalism.

Brad

Cronyism is not isolated to just capitalism. You find it in socialism and communism as well.

 

[oldtimer]

I don't care what "ism" you all want to call it, things have to be done in a fair way and with a certain degree of accountability.

As long as the end result is to serve Humanity and protect our Home Planet I am happy.

IMO

 

[jmcc]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/opinion/dot-org-domain.html

This article was written by a Stanford undergrad with a Stanford prof as the byline.

It is propaganda, Rob.
It is what is known in Journalism as "knocking copy". It sets up a pile of strawman arguments about .ORG and proceeds to demolish them. The problem is that neither of the two on the by-line are experts in domain names but the association of utterly irrelevant academic credentials and Stanford give the article an air of authority.

It is a money deal more so than control. If you had read the Domnomics book, , you would have seen that most of the revenue that a registry makes after the first few years of operation comes from renewals. The .ORG basically has a lot of registrants who would find it rather expensive to rebrand so there's a bunch of registrations that are effectively golden handcuffs registrations. That means that they will keep renewing. The other aspect is that the .ORG is quite unlike the other legacy gTLDs in that the percentage of reregistrations in .ORG (also in the book) is lower than that for .COM and .NET. This means that people register their domain name in .ORG and keep renewing it. Those domain names may not be used but they are renewed without fail. That's a very important metric for assessing the quality of a TLD. It also has a high level of brand protection registrations. These are the gold standard of registrations. They mark the TLD as being important enough to warrant a business protecting their brand in the TLD. Those too renew well.

Price-wise, Ethos can effectively sweat the assets with price rises safe in the knowledge that many of the registrants will pay the higher fee. But it was the decision on PIR in 2018 to stop volume discounting that improved the quality of the gTLD. That got rid of a lot of heavily discounted junk registrations that had no chance of renewing. It also improved the quality of the websites on the gTLD because people were less likely to see some of the affiliate landing pages (gambling/adult) that have plagued other gTLDs offering discounted registrations. It also has fewer toxic registrars and hosters (these are registrars that base their business model on following discounting offers from registries). It would not be unthinkable to see .ORG registrations drop back to around the 7 million level. As long as the core of NGO and do-gooder operations maintain their .ORG registration, there would actually be no major problem apart from lost revenue that was not exactly long-term.

As a gTLD, the .ORG doesn't exactly need domainers in the same way that new gTLDs need domainers to drive interesting and registrations. It is a mature gTLD and as such there will probably be more focus on getting more of the kind of registrations that renew well and are used by high profile organisations. It definitely is a money deal rather than a control one. People insist on writing off the new gTLDs as failures when, in reality, some of them are far from being failures and have renewal rates that are better than those of some of the legacy gTLDs. The .ORG has the highest renewal rate of the main legacy gTLDs. If anything can damage that, it is a reaction from the NGO/do-gooder sector but most registrants will keep paying the renewal fees.

Regards...jmcc

 

[trelgor]

The one activated today is from the 2009 and it is interconnected with multiple others dating back and forth. There's 2 from 2019 and I don't expect they are going to activate / execute any time sooner than 2025.

Regards

The same backorder tech patent application was denied in Europe. Examiners said it had no novelty, and Verisign withdrew the application. https://register.epo.org/application?documentId=E19QIT9W1641DSU&number=EP18167711&lng=en&npl=false

 

[Rob Monster]

It is propaganda, Rob.
It is what is known in Journalism as "knocking copy". It sets up a pile of strawman arguments about .ORG and proceeds to demolish them. The problem is that neither of the two on the by-line are experts in domain names but the association of utterly irrelevant academic credentials and Stanford give the article an air of authority.

It is a money deal more so than control. If you had read the Domnomics book, , you would have seen that most of the revenue that a registry makes after the first few years of operation comes from renewals. The .ORG basically has a lot of registrants who would find it rather expensive to rebrand so there's a bunch of registrations that are effectively golden handcuffs registrations. That means that they will keep renewing. The other aspect is that the .ORG is quite unlike the other legacy gTLDs in that the percentage of reregistrations in .ORG (also in the book) is lower than that for .COM and .NET. This means that people register their domain name in .ORG and keep renewing it. Those domain names may not be used but they are renewed without fail. That's a very important metric for assessing the quality of a TLD. It also has a high level of brand protection registrations. These are the gold standard of registrations. They mark the TLD as being important enough to warrant a business protecting their brand in the TLD. Those too renew well.

Price-wise, Ethos can effectively sweat the assets with price rises safe in the knowledge that many of the registrants will pay the higher fee. But it was the decision on PIR in 2018 to stop volume discounting that improved the quality of the gTLD. That got rid of a lot of heavily discounted junk registrations that had no chance of renewing. It also improved the quality of the websites on the gTLD because people were less likely to see some of the affiliate landing pages (gambling/adult) that have plagued other gTLDs offering discounted registrations. It also has fewer toxic registrars and hosters (these are registrars that base their business model on following discounting offers from registries). It would not be unthinkable to see .ORG registrations drop back to around the 7 million level. As long as the core of NGO and do-gooder operations maintain their .ORG registration, there would actually be no major problem apart from lost revenue that was not exactly long-term.

As a gTLD, the .ORG doesn't exactly need domainers in the same way that new gTLDs need domainers to drive interesting and registrations. It is a mature gTLD and as such there will probably be more focus on getting more of the kind of registrations that renew well and are used by high profile organisations. It definitely is a money deal rather than a control one. People insist on writing off the new gTLDs as failures when, in reality, some of them are far from being failures and have renewal rates that are better than those of some of the legacy gTLDs. The .ORG has the highest renewal rate of the main legacy gTLDs. If anything can damage that, it is a reaction from the NGO/do-gooder sector but most registrants will keep paying the renewal fees.

Regards...jmcc

Thanks. Your comment got some likes here from some savvy folks.

What I appreciate about it is that I learned a new term "knocking copy" -- that is not a term I have come across before, but it is descriptive of the pattern. I also sometimes use the team strawman, but some people look at me funny when I use that term. I sometimes refer to it as a "paper tiger".

I agree on the economics of the deal. It is a cash cow. The debt service is easily sustained by the projectable cash flow. That's all true. However, if it was as simple as return on cash, there would be other bidders since let's face it, TCV, KKR and Silver Lake all know this industry and all cashed out of GDDY.

I remain of the opinion that there is a cohesive strategy to secure private names spaces and to control their governance. The fact that this can be done profitably with levered cash is of course a bonus, but I believe the strategic synergy comes from the rollup.

 

[Lox]

PR Dec 17 - EFF to ICANN: Stop .ORG Domain Registry Sale To Private Equity Firm

 

[Rob Monster]

PR Dec 17 - EFF to ICANN: Stop .ORG Domain Registry Sale To Private Equity Firm

I would really like to think that EFF is more than a paper tiger and that their lobby capacity goes beyond rhetoric. They do write good stuff. No debate on their talking points.

Worth noting:

https://www.internetsociety.org/board-of-trustees/list-of-resolutions/

#51 is clear

#52 is less clear.

If anyone knows the detail there, please share.

Those resolutions appear on the December 6 update of the site. The prior update on November 5 does not include any of those.

They seem pretty goal-oriented to get this done. I think IS would do well to lay out some really compelling narrative about how they will use their windfall.

Who knows? Maybe they are funding decentralized Internet projects.... Oops.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

I will be not surprised if Ethos is affiliated with Afilias...
Officially or not officially - doesn't matter.

 

[branding]

It looks like PIR would lose about 30M (yearly) in funding if it gets sold to Ethos.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/et...rnet-society-isoc.1163290/page-2#post-7545786

But don't worry. Price increases will cover that.

 

[oldtimer]

One way or another it's going to be the registrants who are going to pay,

“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”

https://www.namepros.com/threads/he...o-a-private-equity-firm.1165342/#post-7518102

Even if they don't increase the prices by more than 10% per year, but the 1.135 billion is eventually going to come out of registrants pockets.

IMO

 

[MapleDots]

I wonder if .org is just a testing ground for something bigger later on.

Now that would be a conspiracy theory don't you think?

Lets get our feet wet with .org to see what kind of resistance we meet before the sale of some much larger extensions.

 

[Lox]

PIR and Ethos invite you to a community webinar on Thursday, December 19, from 11am-12pm ET / 4pm UTC to discuss how PIR will continue to advance its mission of serving stakeholders in the .ORG community. At the meeting, we will discuss the planned Stewardship Council and seek community input on its mandate, structure and mode of operation. We will also review proposed programs to serve the .ORG Community.

read more (key points about org)

 

[Rob Monster]

I wonder if .org is just a testing ground for something bigger later on.

Now that would be a conspiracy theory don't you think?

Lets get our feet wet with .org to see what kind of resistance we meet before the sale of some much larger extensions.

Well, to be fair, I think the Donuts/Rightside trial balloon already passed with flying colors. Perhaps you noticed that deal. Just because it is a lot of baby registries, does not mean it does not count. ICANN is not exactly moving swiftly to open the next round of registries, and most of what is left is going to be relatively weak, assuming they even get to see the light of day all. Not clear. I am still going with the hypothesis that the objective is to control the desirable namespaces.

 

[Lox]

I will be not surprised if Ethos is affiliated with Afilias...
Officially or not officially - doesn't matter.

If ... in that case Donuts (Abry) will not withdraw from the negotiation related to the dot Global (now in hands of Afilias). But a.y.s; a big or small surprises everywhere.

 

[othellotech]

Can be summarised into ...
Slimy neopotistic scumbag continues backroom/backhander deals even after losing job.

The only "shocker" is that anyone thinks this is something other than lining certain pockets, exactly like he did at ICANN.

 

[Bernard Wright]

The only "shocker" is that anyone thinks this is something other than lining certain pockets, exactly like he did at ICANN.

Why is it a shocker to think there could be more to the story than fat pockets?

 

[Rob Monster]

Can be summarised into ...
Slimy neopotistic scumbag continues backroom/backhander deals even after losing job.

The only "shocker" is that anyone thinks this is something other than lining certain pockets, exactly like he did at ICANN.

Those are some pretty descriptive accusations. Care to back that narrative up with incontrovertible proof?

If not, I would advise to soften or retract the accusations.

It is one thing to accuse someone of having an agenda. It is another thing to imply systematic graft or incompetence.

My thesis is that we are dealing with technocrats with agendas. That might call for installing people who are friendly to an agenda.

The real question we are trying to understand in this thread is the WHY behind the WHAT.

 

[othellotech]

Those are some pretty descriptive accusations.

It's my opinion, but each part is easy enough to explain

I've called him slimy to his face, a colloquialism regarding the regular and repeated two-facedness, saying entirely different and contradictory things to different people based on what would garner the most favour at that point - one of the few CEOs I've interacted with that made me want to carry hand-sanitiser with me. "smooth" I think is how he was described in the book Hacked - it's not a compliment

Claiming on record for himself and icann to be "super transparent" and then following that by having lots of closed room meetings out of scrutiny.

The very definition of nepotisim in business is family/friends all installing each other in positions within the organisation, all of which is well documented
- what are your current "odds" on all the "org sell off " inter-relationships being "accidental" rather than by design ?

Saying at one meeting that absolutely they wouldnt be getting into content regulation in any way g'teed (echoing the corporate linkedin icann page at the time), and then recruiting people for exactly that task, and having icann compliance in some instances taking up that very role

The deliberate, concerted and sadly partially effective move away from the PDPs etc specifically pushed by him and Akram as part of as "we're in charge you do what we say the way we say it" power play

Being highly contemptible - aka a scumbag - in publicly "dissing" the hard working volunteers on working groups, when they weren't going his way - particularly with the CWG/EWG - even going so far as to claim at a DNA meeting (I'm not in the DNA so wasn't there, but I know people who were and the recording is on youtube) that he had to send in people to teach a room full of registries, registrars and long-time icann attendees what IANA has to do with names/numbers
- yet I have watched him more than once get domains and dns completely conflated.

Overall icann accountability appears significantly worse than pre -transition, and with that final oversight gone, who knows if it will ever come back, all of which happened while he was CEO (and very critical of plans to make icann accountable and subject to scrutiny)

Spending a not-small-amount of registrant money towards the start of an alternate governance forum which wouldn't be subject to all that messy stakeholder involvement, and when that tanked, trying again with Wuzhen (sp ?)

I could go on, but life is too short, to get concerned over 5 years of that cr@p all over again

 

[othellotech]

I am still going with the hypothesis that the objective is to control the desirable namespaces.

Some form of default/backdoor regulator ?

 

[Bernard Wright]

@othellotech it seems like you’ve worked among some high circles. That’s pretty neat. You’ve painted a clear picture of your disdain for the “what” and the “who”. This thread exists to diliberate the “why”.

The only conclusion I can draw from your posts is that you’re convinced that FC is so smooth and, presumably, greed-driven that he lacks the foresight to be guided by any driving force beyond the financial. Feel free to correct me if I’m mistaken in this presumption.

To be clear, you will find few (probably zero) advocates/friends/fans of FC in this thread. Perhaps you know him well enough to lay out a clear case as to why those who think “control” comes into play as a motive behind the PIR sale are “shockingly” incorrect. Until you do that, I see no reason to conclude that, from your posts, you’ve given any thought to the actual topic being discussed here. ...which would be fine if you were more respectful to the discussion this thread was intended for, and its participants.

 

[Rob Monster]

Some form of default/backdoor regulator ?

More of a hidden hand or puppet-master. That's why it is helpful to understand/discern the "WHY" instead of the "WHAT". From the "WHY" comes the "WHO".

 

[Rob Monster]

It's my opinion, but each part is easy enough to explain

I've called him slimy to his face, a colloquialism regarding the regular and repeated two-facedness, saying entirely different and contradictory things to different people based on what would garner the most favour at that point - one of the few CEOs I've interacted with that made me want to carry hand-sanitiser with me. "smooth" I think is how he was described in the book Hacked - it's not a compliment

Claiming on record for himself and icann to be "super transparent" and then following that by having lots of closed room meetings out of scrutiny.

The very definition of nepotisim in business is family/friends all installing each other in positions within the organisation, all of which is well documented
- what are your current "odds" on all the "org sell off " inter-relationships being "accidental" rather than by design ?

Saying at one meeting that absolutely they wouldnt be getting into content regulation in any way g'teed (echoing the corporate linkedin icann page at the time), and then recruiting people for exactly that task, and having icann compliance in some instances taking up that very role

The deliberate, concerted and sadly partially effective move away from the PDPs etc specifically pushed by him and Akram as part of as "we're in charge you do what we say the way we say it" power play

Being highly contemptible - aka a scumbag - in publicly "dissing" the hard working volunteers on working groups, when they weren't going his way - particularly with the CWG/EWG - even going so far as to claim at a DNA meeting (I'm not in the DNA so wasn't there, but I know people who were and the recording is on youtube) that he had to send in people to teach a room full of registries, registrars and long-time icann attendees what IANA has to do with names/numbers
- yet I have watched him more than once get domains and dns completely conflated.

Overall icann accountability appears significantly worse than pre -transition, and with that final oversight gone, who knows if it will ever come back, all of which happened while he was CEO (and very critical of plans to make icann accountable and subject to scrutiny)

Spending a not-small-amount of registrant money towards the start of an alternate governance forum which wouldn't be subject to all that messy stakeholder involvement, and when that tanked, trying again with Wuzhen (sp ?)

I could go on, but life is too short, to get concerned over 5 years of that cr@p all over again

Well, I have sat in on a bunch of ICANN working groups. I know a smoke-screen when I see one. The public pomp and circumstance is not where the action is happening. I can say that much. I saw that process big-time with the RDAP. In particular, the lack of open disclosure on how "law enforcement" is to be given the right to pierce the privacy veil at will.

On the other hand, I have found Goran Marby (current CEO) to be pretty adept at navigating the UN crowd (I saw him in person there once) and also keeping a hands-off role vis-a-vis registry and registrar governance. I saw this first hand in his deft handling of a bunch of appeals for partisan censorship. Goran wrote some doublespeak that essentially said "talk to the registries".

In other words, with ICANN under Goran, I do believe the registries are sovereign. Since it is hard to regulate them into a corner, it will be easier to just buy them. The alternative would likely create massive legal liability down the road due to provable malfeasance, e.g. if there was tortious interference or breach of contract. Indeed, for a registry or registrar, such things could lead to very material claims.

As for Akram, I have met him a couple of times. He is a nice guy. From my observation, he is mainly an engineer and a policy wonk. I don't see him as ever becoming a captain of industry with a transformative vision for the future of Donuts. The fact that a protege of Fadi would land at Donuts and then do "not a lot" is perhaps indicative of a hidden hand -- one that likely sits above Fadi.

Anyway, duly noted on your observations.

 

[tonyk2000]

The sale of the .org registry to a for-profit private equity firm would have “a disastrous effect on stability,” a DNS specialist has warned. In a letter to ICANN posted online on Tuesday, the Packet Clearing House (PCH) argues that a move away from the registry’s current non-profit status would result in significantly less money being spent on .org’s operational costs.

Packet Clearing House currently provides DNS services (servers) to .org, so they are well familiar with the subject.

PCH provides graphs and modelling to explain its estimate that the move to Ethos would result in three days of downtime a year. “Our conclusion is that the decreased operational spending necessary for any commercial purchaser to break even would result in an increase from zero down-time to, on average, slightly more than three days without service each year,” it argues.

It notes that “three days per year of interrupted communications for millions of not-for-profit organizations would unacceptably damage the stability and functionality of the Internet, and more broadly of society globally.”

PCH also delves into the hot-button question of how much Ethos Capital will raise the cost of .org domains.

More details:

https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/mitchell-woodcock-to-jeffrey-12dec19-en.pdf

 

[Rob Monster]

The sale of the .org registry to a for-profit private equity firm would have “a disastrous effect on stability,” a DNS specialist has warned. In a letter to ICANN posted online on Tuesday, the Packet Clearing House (PCH) argues that a move away from the registry’s current non-profit status would result in significantly less money being spent on .org’s operational costs.

Packet Clearing House currently provides DNS services (servers) to .org, so they are well familiar with the subject.

PCH provides graphs and modelling to explain its estimate that the move to Ethos would result in three days of downtime a year. “Our conclusion is that the decreased operational spending necessary for any commercial purchaser to break even would result in an increase from zero down-time to, on average, slightly more than three days without service each year,” it argues.

It notes that “three days per year of interrupted communications for millions of not-for-profit organizations would unacceptably damage the stability and functionality of the Internet, and more broadly of society globally.”

PCH also delves into the hot-button question of how much Ethos Capital will raise the cost of .org domains.

More details:

https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/mitchell-woodcock-to-jeffrey-12dec19-en.pdf

Interesting tactic -- like the folks who say some construction cannot happen due to some environmental risk assessment. The builder then hires some green engineers to produce an environmental impact study and then it goes forward with some adjustments.

As for DNS resolution, easily solved by .ORG entering into an SLA with an Anycast provider. Resilient Anycast is no longer rocket science, More here on their Anycast footprint

https://www.pch.net/about/peering

 

[tonyk2000]

As for DNS resolution, easily solved by .ORG entering into an SLA with an Anycast provider. Resilient Anycast is no longer rocket science,

Yeah, indeed. Moreover, it might be beneficial (to the public). Open bidding to run a registry (administrative part). At the same time and independently, open bidding to provide global DNS infrastructure (technical part). At least if we are speaking about mature TLDs. More transparency and competition on all levels... not something we can expect from ICANN unfortunately.