Group calls out ICANN’s “terrible blunder”.
Internet Commerce Association is asking domain overseer ICANN to block the sale of the .Org registry to Ethos Capital.
It sent a damning letter (pdf) to ICANN today that states what many observers are thinking. In part:
Surely you can now appreciate the terrible blunder that you have made. Crucial policy decisions that have billion-dollar ramifications and which affect the stability of the Internet must be the subject of robust Board involvement and not left to ICANN staff.
If you were led to believe that removing price caps on .Org domain names was a sound approach because the registry would remain in the hands of a nonprofit foundation, you have clearly been misled. If you were led to believe that despite being the effective owner of the .org registry, you were somehow forced to let your service providers tell you how much they can charge, instead of the other way around, you have been led astray. If you have been told that .Org does not have market power within the nonprofit sector, you have been led astray. If you have been told that competition from other gTLDs will constrain .org prices, you have been led astray.
Section 7.5 of the registry agreement between Public Interest Registry and ICANN states:
Except as set forth in this Section 7.5, neither party may assign any of its rights and obligations under this Agreement without the prior written approval of the other party, which approval will not be unreasonably withheld.
The question now is: would it be reasonable for ICANN to withold approval of the transfer of the .org registry agreement?
ICANN has a history of wimping out in fights. But given the blowback it is getting and will get for many years from this deal, it might be one of those times it steps up.
The letter concludes:
If your miscalculation of awarding a perpetual, no-bid agreement – lacking any price caps whatsoever – was premised on the registry remaining in the hands of an organization serving the public interest, the pending sale to a private equity firm should cause you to reconsider your approach. Fortunately the purported sale of the .Org registry affords you an opportunity to withhold approval, terminate the Registry Agreement in respect of any consummated transaction, and put the contract out for competitive bid.
Where is the ICANN Board when it comes to safeguarding the interests of nonprofit registrants?
“Surely you can now appreciate the terrible blunder that you have made.”
No, we can’t. And stop calling us “Shirley”.
Instead of public interest registry, you’re trying to rebrand as ‘private interest rapists’.
If you don’t contact the European Union, I can’t.
What is the remedy should ICANN choose to ignore all the complaints?
As an obvious reminder, a .ORG base fee increase of 100% will result in at least a 100% profit increase for registrars as they raise their fees. So at all domain administrative level, everybody has their hands in this cookie jar.
I presume this was said being 100% ironic / in jest? Sounds like it….
With a 100% price increase from the registry, registrars will have to double their fees as their costs go up by this. Domain registrars are in a competitive business whereby price matters and they actually compete for end users based on services offered and price, among security, and other services, most registrars will not make a dime more on this. So the cost is only being added to the registry’s bottom line. That in the position of the monopoly.
Sorry for the ambiguity of my wording, no, not speaking in jest. For example, OpenSRS pricing:
https://opensrs.com/services/domains/domain-pricing/
.COM is $12 for a basic account, and that is to the reseller, end user gets a markup from there.
.ORG is $15 for a basic account, $11.30 for enterprise.
When .COM, .ORG, .INFO, etc, all raise their prices, registrars will be able to raise their margins and will do so.
A key reason I became a registrar was the issue of registrar income. If a registrar makes $1 from a domain name, a single support call causes that $1 of income to no longer be income and likely takes them into the red. In effect, those low margins are also at the heart of registrar like GoDaddy “changing their attitude” when a domain gets stolen, see Stevan’s video regarding MLA.COM:
DomainTheft.com
No, I do not agree that registrars making $1 per domain name at a base fee of $10 will still only be making $1 when the base fee goes to $20 and beyond. Their margins will go up, going from $1 to $2 is a big deal for them, but the end user went from $11 to $22 and $21 is not likely to make or break the sale. Also don’t forgot, registries have promotional kickbacks as well, all the more available “funny money” with a higher base fee.
But to come back to my point, how many Registrars are complaining about this .ORG deal? How many do you think will? If hardly any of them complain, why do you think they are silent? Thus my point. So long as they are on board with raising prices, its checkmate for the registries and ICANN.
I would hope many registrars, including GoDaddy, would stand up against this.
GoDaddy has as much skin in the game as any domain investor if this is allowed to happen with legacy extensions.
They have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on domain portfolios, and are subject to the same wholesale renewal cost as customers.
Brad
There is a lot of “if” going on.
Non competitive bid is certainly socially questionable.
Not seeing anyone posting it as an absolute requirement.
The caveat yet to be reviewed is a requirement that it retains not for profit status in perpetuity.”If” yes then is it ethical for a profit entity to own a non profit that, from what has been stated, guarentees a substantial Endowment
Intended to spread net access to all?
Yes.
Proof of intent requires time on both sides of the fence.
Maybe, they already have conditional approval from ICANN.
1. Remains non- profit
2. Must have non-profit status to
purchase
3. Guaranteed Endowment
I wouldn’t hire or sell to anyone that thinks it’s ok to ” speculate” , “flip”, profit from .org domains. Would you?
Social responsibility and giving back are hot commodities in the millennial and gen Z upcoming market.
There will be more profit Corps touting the .org angle to fulfill the social responsibility culture that’s growing.
ETHOS – they couldn’t have chosen a better word, the irony! Lol
Reputation is critical going forward for all.
Hard to believe without significant detail
This wasn’t a serious consideration.
Releasing snippet = Test.
Too much specspit going on.
Cheers
I think it is extremely important to point out that PIR made many false and 100% inaccurate statements during the public comment process.
One of Jon Nevett’s erroneous statements:
**********
“we cannot dramatically increase prices for .ORG, as we recognize and understand that both our .ORG end users and our .ORG registrars would turn away from .ORG.”
**********
This statement by PIR is unequivocally wrong. It is false. Jon is making the point that both .ORG end users and registrars would turn away from .ORG
—With regards to .ORG end users or “registrants”: Registrants are, for all practical purposes, entrenched in their existing domain names. It is virtually impossible for an organization to switch away from .org to a different domain because they are locked-in to their existing website (search engine rankings, email systems, no way to recall offline media/advertising and printed business cards and all of the lost branding, goodwill, no way to update browser bookmarks, etc.) Furthermore, it is a tedious process to switch, as domain names are hardcoded into websites and databases – require planning and coordination across different departments, sometimes with third-party firms, and likely involve updating thousands or more lines of website code.
In the few cases where registrants / companies have switched domain names, they are forced to maintain their existing domain name for search engine redirects and to make sure old emails continue to be received and don’t disappear into a black hole. There is no way to port or forward existing email without continuing to maintain the old domain registration (and paying required fees.) Registrants are simply not willing to risk of giving up access to future email correspondence that originate from older emails when users hit the “reply” button. Think of all of those emails you have sent out on the past – to hundreds of contacts – sitting in inboxes. All of those replies will not be delivered – and lost forever. Also, think about the security concerns – say a law firm were to switch domain names and its website – if the firm does not continue to renew its old domain name, it potentially has the risk of the next registrant receiving old sensitive legal emails.
—With regards to “registrars”: The lock-in effect is enormous. Registrars have existing customers which registered .org domains (most from a very long time ago.) Each of these customers is required to renew domains annually to maintain ownership. If registrars stopped offering .org registration or renewal services – it would cause a major disruption with .org customers. Chaos! Customers would be forced to transfer their domains to another registrar. Many domains would be lost and many customers would be unaware that they have to take special action or they will lose their domain name. This is a frightening customer issue. Can you imagine millions of registrants scrambling to transfer their domains to another registrar? Most registrants have their domains on auto-renew – imagine the frustration when they find out that they lost their domain because it did not auto renew – because the registrar no longer offered .org registration services! Therefore, it is impossible for registrars to stop offering .ORG registration services. IMPOSSIBLE. Registrars are held hostage to registries as they are the sole sourced provider.
PIR lied. .org has market power – and no alternatives exist. IN fact, every single registrar (other than few no longer in business) that offered .org registration services 5 years ago — continues to offer them today. Registrars are locked in. they can’t switch.
Domain names are not portable at the registry level – thus, .org is a monopoly (or the soled sourced provider.)
Furthermore, because of .ORG’s longstanding history as being established with non-profits and organizations and being one of the true legacy TLD’s that launched back in 1985, it has market power and is the ONLY feasible choice for non-profits and organizations. If organizations and charities use a domain extension other than .ORG – they will lack credibility and will lose that trust factor that is built into this extension. Registrars can’t turn away from this revenue source, as there are no practical substitutes. Registrars would permanently lose business from all non-profits and organizations throughout the world. The revenue is unreplaceable. It is not possible to no offer the third most popular domain extension in the world.
Considering PIR entirely lied – and Jon pushed the false narrative that domain names are interchangeable – this has to be investigated.
This is bad…..and we have a situation of market failure in the DNS.
You sure came out of the woodwork in the wake of this insanity, and I’m sure glad you did.
• Well I’m glad the ICA did this.
• Glad this guy John has been commenting in numerous threads.
• Glad to see a number of people rising to the occasion.
Many words come to mind, but at the moment the word UNCONSCIONABLE at the top.
I still insist legacy TLDs are a public trust, public resource, public utility. Not even ICANN should be considered the “owner” of any of them. Registries should be considered managers, stewards, utility servicers. Categorically different from new gTLDs like night and day.
PS, and while we may have had a few little points of disagreement here and there over the months and years, I’m sure glad to see how Andrew has been covering this too.
Actions of ICANN have tended toward self-serving corruption for a long time. I doubt many are surprised by all of this
But this is the age of the whistle blower. One can only wonder what kind of thorny details would be exposed, or what certain otherwise privileged conversations or emails would reveal, if someone were willing to step forward, whether an anonymous good samaritan on the inside, or something in the nature of an ‘ICANN-Leaks’.
You’ve invoked dangerous.email
It’s pretty bad ICA has to be the one to stand up for end-users and domainers rights, because ICANN won’t do it.
ICANN = Unethical
ICA = Ethical
The facts and the interconnections of the dot org deal are indeed damning. They certainly do not appear to pass the smell test.
Thank you ICA for standing up and taking the lead on this very important matter.
#SpeakTruthToPower
Anyone know if end users have been contacted to exercise objection ?
10 million emails.
Registrars ?
Has ICA distributed press releases to the general public ?
Not finding big out of industry news about this anywhere…
Taking a stand for end users without contacting them is odd…
We need to increase our support of the ICA so it can be more active and effective in protecting our rights.
They cannot do everything if the domain community does not provide them a budget with which to do it. You can do this by joining and paying dues or just contributing to them if you do not want to become an ICA member.
They are our best and possibly only chance in defending against the various registrant-hostile developments and decisions emanating from ICANN.
InternetCommerce.org
How many organizations such as ICANN are all over the world that their market is what moves hundreds or more millions of USD every year.
Non-profit organizations have been false for a long time.
ICA: Thank you
>How many organizations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btF6nKHo2i0
Also read self made billionaire Jim Rogers book Investment biker:
https://www.amazon.com/Investment-Biker-Around-World-Rogers/dp/0812968719
Some great stories in there about NGO’s. Every time he entered a country, the first thing he did was find “the black market” and perform a currency exchange. Then he went to a bank and did the same thing. Based on the difference of the two exchange rates, he immediately knew the level of corruption (proportional to the rate difference) in the country and where to find opportunities to invest.
He wrote a second book when he did the trip again comparing what had changed in that time.
Jim’s a historian, he points out there is nothing new here, same BS, different millennium. Not to say we should sit back and do nothing, just means those playing the games pay attention to history to ….
I dropped org that I had planned to keep except they raised prices. They want to offer $1 first year. Such severely limits any individual the opportunity to ‘catch’ a dropped domain. Icann throttles ping of each individual registrar into the zone files. There is a monopoly with ‘huge domains’ paying icann the most, 1500 entitlements. If you accept promos, domains will be perpetually dropped then recovered by huge domains for $1, promo price. Meanwhile, renewal prices will go up, further squeezing domains from I dropped org that I had planned to keep except they raised prices. They want to offer $1 first year. Such severely limits any individual the opportunity to ‘catch’ a dropped domain. Icann throttles ping of each individual registrar into the zone files. There is a monopoly with ‘huge domains’ paying icann the most, 1500 entitlements. If you accept promos, domains will be perpetually dropped then recovered by huge domains for $1, promo price. Meanwhile, renewal prices will go up, further squeezing domains from legitimate inventors hands. Click my name.legitimate inventors hands. Click my name.
ICA can take a stand, but they, just like the 3200 objections to price cap removals, aren’t doing much except getting steamrolled time and time again.
The entire Internet community – ICA, non-profits, and individuals, have to get Congress and the DOJ involved to slap ICANN with an anti-trust or they are going to continue unabated.
Please contact your congress person now and tell them what’s going on!!
>slap ICANN with an anti-trust
April 3, 2007:
https://www.cnet.com/news/icann-may-be-looking-for-immunity-from-u-s-law/
Network Solutions a for profit company was the original “steward” of .org.
3200 objections out of 10 million users does not equate to “wide spread opposition” as ICA implies. Too many “if’s” involved which looks to qualify unverified accusations.
Corruption is as old as money.
Like the biker story,
Work around corruption
The United States is full of corrupt corporations that have bilked the public yet still stand.
Anyone here a customer of BofA or Wells Fargo? If yes why?
The devastation caused was huge.
ICA doesn’t need money. Have they asked members to send out emails to end users or press releases ?
Digitally this isn’t difficult or time consuming if hundreds or thousands are participating.
Yet not seeing it requested.
10 million objections would be the most efficient cost effective solution to further the objection here.
Yet not seeing it requested. A poor use of resource available to ICA IMO
All this Specspit about the end users. The poor non profits.
Not likely for new “stewards” to alienate the majority of actual user base.
Investors? – profiteers of a public trust commodity intended for non profits?
Hypocrites.
No concern at all for the 45% of human population that isn’t connected yet that this substantial guaranteed Endowment is intended for.
Not likely ICANN didn’t know prior to release.
Likely, even if there is corruption, the benifit outweighs the risk.
The only risk here is 10 million objections.
Cheers
It won’t be the opposition of domainers that will change this outcome. If change is wanted, end-users need to be involved. A ton of them.
Chattle management 101:
I think if PIR lowered their price, all that opposition would disappear. Then in a year they raise the price, and no amount of opposition will do a thing, it will be too late.
Its why Domain Investors likely are the only one who could do it. But after 2 decades of “working together” we still often times can’t agree the sky is blue. We just continue to get carved up until we are gone from the equation.
The biggest concern for me is as time moves forward, there will be fewer and fewer Domain Investors. As time goes on End Users will have no clue of what is going on and why.
Back to root splitting.
ICANN finally implemented IDN’s because of China’s (IDNS) root split of IDNs for .COM and .NET. And I think the nTLDs were primarily an attempt by ICANN to stop further root splitting, it folded everything into its control. Root splits are end users way to get around all these issues. The fears of “internet destabilization” of root splits are unfounded as many governments have done it (IDNS promoted that fact). Its the only way to bring competition to ICANN as well. Its the free market speaking at “the root”.
There is now a Change.org petition to suspend the dot org sale pending a formal public review process.
The url for the campaign is:
http://chng.it/gXRkpNgsRq
The origin article is at:
https://medium.com/@jacobmalthouse/the-progressive-movement-just-waved-goodbye-to-180-million-dollars-a-year-b497b4153c07
Take a moment to sign it and help ensure a fair and thorough review of this historically important transaction.