ICANN Makes Big Decision in Battle for .ORG

ICANN Board Withholds Consent for Change of Control of PIR

In the ongoing saga to control seven top-level domains, including the .ORG and .NGO domains, it appears that the sale of the Public Interest Registry (PIR) to Ethos Capital is not approved to happen. At least, not right now.

ICANN’s Board posted their decision on Thursday, April 30, and explained their reasoning in a post on their website, providing their Board meeting minutes, which revolved around financial security and transparency.

From ICANN’s post about the decision on their website:

The Board was presented with a unique and complex situation – impacting one of the largest registries with more than 10.5 million domain names registered. After completing its evaluation, the ICANN Board finds that the public interest is better served in withholding consent as a result of various factors that create unacceptable uncertainty over the future of the third largest gTLD registry. Factors that were considered in determining reasonableness include, but are not limited to:

• • A change from the fundamental public interest nature of PIR to an entity that is bound to serve the interests of its corporate stakeholders, and which has no meaningful plan to protect or serve the .ORG community.
  • ICANN is being asked to agree to contract with a wholly different form of entity; instead of maintaining its contract with the mission-based, not-for-profit that has responsibly operated the .ORG registry for nearly 20 years, with the protections for its own community embedded in its mission and status as a not-for-profit entity.
  • The US$360 million debt instrument forces PIR to service that debt and provide returns to its shareholders, which raises further question about how the .ORG registrants will be protected or will benefit from this conversion. This is a fundamental change in financial position from a not-for-profit entity.
  • There are additional uncertainties, such as an untested Stewardship Council that might not be properly independent, or why PIR needs to change its corporate form to pursue new business initiatives.
  • The transaction as proposed relies on ICANN as a backstop for enforcement of disputes between the .ORG community and the registry operator in an untested manner.

What happens next?

Ethos Capital, the Public Interest Registry, and The Internet Society all posted responses to the keypointsabout.org website and it is too soon to know for sure if Ethos Capital will come back with new arguments for why the transaction should still take place.

For now, there seems to be an uneasy settling happening in the Twittersphere about the topic. Some are asking if the trust has been irreparably broken with PIR and ISOC. ISOC has some relationship-repair to undertake with its members.

The question about the best way to protect and support these domains deemed so critical to the public good is a big one.

Now that we’ve established what isn’t in the best interest of the public for these domains, maybe we should identify what is.

Photo by Junior Teixeira from Pexels