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Public Interest Registry (.org) hires CFO

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.Org manager hires Laurie Tarpey as CFO.

Headshot of Laurie Tarpey, new CFO of Public Interest Registry

Laurie Tarpey

Public Interest Registry, the non-profit that manages the .org top level domain name, has hired a new Chief Financial Officer.

Laurie Tarpey was most recently the Chief Operating Officer of Raffa, P.C., an accounting firm that was acquired by Marcum LLP. Prior to that, she was CFO of Northern Virginia Family Service, a non-profit that helps disadvantaged and underserved families and individuals on the path to self-sufficiency.

The hiring is just the latest in a series beginning with Jon Nevett taking over as CEO of the organization at the end of last year.

Other recent hires include Judy Song-Marshall as Chief of Staff, Joe Abley as Chief Technology Officer, and Anand Vora as VP of Business Affairs.

EFF files reconsideration request over .Org decision

by — Policy & Law 1 Comment

Advocacy group blasts ICANN decision to apply URS to legacy top level domain.

Electronic Frontier Foundation logoElectronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a Reconsideration Request with ICANN over the terms of ICANN’s contract renewal for .org with Public Interest Registry.

It’s the second Reconsideration Request filed over the .org contract extension. Namecheap filed one primarily focused on pricing. EFF’s filing (pdf) focuses on the extension of Uniform Rapid Suspension to .org and permission from ICANN for PIR to “at its election, implement additional protections of the legal rights of third parties” unilaterally and without further consultation with existing .org registrants or the ICANN community.

EFF notes that these provisions were developed for the rollout of new top level domains, not legacy domains like .org. Now ICANN is extending them to legacy top level domains.

ICANN points to the bottom-up decision making in designing the new base agreement for new top level domains as justification for applying it to all new top level domains:

The Base RA was developed to support the new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) being created through the 2012 New gTLD Program. It was developed through the bottom-up multistakeholder process including multiple rounds of public comment and aligns with the underlying Generic Names Supporting Organization’s (GNSO’s) policy recommendations for new gTLDs. Established in 2013, the Base RA now applies to over 1,200 gTLDs. The ICANN org has consistently used the Base RA as the starting point for discussions with legacy gTLD operators about renewing their Registry Agreements. The Base RA provides additional safeguards and security and stability requirements compared to legacy agreements. Since 2014, several legacy gTLDs have renewed their agreements adopting the Base RA: cat, .jobs, .mobi, .pro, .tel, .travel, and most recently, .asia, .biz, .info, and .org.

But that’s not what the community decided when it designed the base agreement. The community differentiated between “new” top level domains and old ones, and for good reasons. EFF is a member of the GNSO Working Group for Review of All Rights Protection Mechanisms in All gTLDs, which is tasked with determining if things like URS should be applied to legacy TLDs.

EFF also points out ICANN’s flawed thinking about choice in new top level domains: that if someone isn’t happy with how a TLD operates, it can just switch domains.

Some might respond that .org registrants should simply change to a different TLD, but such change is often extremely difficult and costly for longstanding .org users. A group like EFF, or Amnesty International, will have spent decades building value in their existing domain names and would incur enormous costs in switching.

ICANN: All your Base Agreement are belong to us

by — Policy & Law 13 Comments

ICANN responds to (some) questions about why it decided to remove price controls.

Meme "All your base are belong to us" but with "All your base agreement are belong to us" referring to ICANN

Earlier this month, Internet Commerce Association asked ICANN to explain its decision to remove price controls on .org domains.

Cyrus Namazi, Senior Vice-President Global Domains Division, has responded (pdf). What he said is what many people feared when the ICANN community worked on a base agreement for new top level domain names: it is being used as the foundation for all top level domains, not just the new ones.

I recall people specifically warning against this during new top level domain discussions. They pointed out that new TLDs are being introduced in a different market and by different rules than legacy top level domains and that it was important to draw a distinction between the two.

From the letter:

The Base RA was developed to support the new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) being created through the 2012 New gTLD Program. It was developed through the bottom-up multistakeholder process including multiple rounds of public comment and aligns with the underlying Generic Names Supporting Organization’s (GNSO’s) policy recommendations for new gTLDs. Established in 2013, the Base RA now applies to over 1,200 gTLDs. The ICANN org has consistently used the Base RA as the starting point for discussions with legacy gTLD operators about renewing their Registry Agreements. The Base RA provides additional safeguards and security and stability requirements compared to legacy agreements. Since 2014, several legacy gTLDs have renewed their agreements adopting the Base RA: cat, .jobs, .mobi, .pro, .tel, .travel, and most recently, .asia, .biz, .info, and .org.

Had the community discussions when formulating the new TLD base agreement earlier this decade  been about creating a new agreement that applied to all top level domains, I can assure you the results would have been very different.

Namazi’s response also includes ICANN’s common refrain about price increases: that registrants can renew for ten years at today’s prices if an increase is announced.

Great, but who is around ten years from now to handle the complaints from registrants?

Or, who handles the complaints from registrants who didn’t know about the price increase? Sure, the registry gave notice to the registrars, but did the registrant ever find out?

Cyrus’ response is in paragraph form and does not explicitly answer all of Internet Commerce Association’s numbered questions.

ICANN will have to provide more answers in response to a Request for Reconsideration filed by domain registrar Namecheap.

Namecheap files reconsideration request over removing .Org, .Info price caps

by — Domain Registrars 11 Comments

Company asks ICANN to reconsider its decision to remove price caps on some legacy top level domains.

Image of dollar sign and upwards arrow

One of the largest ICANN-accredited domain name registrars has filed a Reconsideration Request (pdf) with ICANN over its decision to remove price caps in its renewed contracts for .org and .info domain names.

Namecheap filed the request as a party that will be adversely affected by uncontrolled price increases. It also says it’s filing on behalf of domain registrants.

The complaint outlines what many people have already stated: removing price caps from legacy TLDs adds extreme uncertainty to domain registrants, switching costs for domains are high, and ICANN seemingly ignored public input. The company wrote:

Namecheap is submitting this reconsideration request to protect the rights and interests of Namecheap’s customers and the entire internet community. Price caps for legacy TLDs have been an integral longstanding foundation for the domain name marketplace, and removing them will result in uncertainty and confusion at a minimum, and in the worst case, increased costs for domain registrants worldwide.

I suspect that legal action or an antitrust lawsuit will be required to get ICANN to actually reverse course.

Based on the timing of the filing, it’s possible that ICANN’s board will have to vote on the Board Accountability Mechanism Committee’s recommendation on the request at the end of the ICANN meeting in Montreal this November. I’m sure the price hikes will be a big discussion during that meeting.

PIR (.org) releases annual report, shows impact from new Afilias deal

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Margins are up thanks to renegotiated contract with Afilias.

Chart showing Public Interest Registry bookings and operating income by year

Public Interest Registry (PIR), the organization that operates the .org top level domain, released its 2018 annual report today.

The report includes data for 2018 and gives the first indications into its new contract with Afilias to run the technical backed of the registry.

PIR put the technical contract out to bid in 2016. Twenty companies responded to the RFP but PIR decided to stick with Afilias.

The new contract started in 2018. In 2017 PIR paid Afilias $37.8 million, which is much higher than many registry operators would charge.

We won’t know for sure how much Afilias earned on the .org contract in 2017 until PIR files its 2018 tax return later this year. But it is notable that PIR’s operating income increased from $38.9M in 2017 to $45.9 million in 2018, an improvement of $7.0 million.

The total cost of revenue in 2018 was $32.9 million.

Afilias’ fees aren’t the only thing in these numbers. And, frankly, I expected to see a bigger change under the renegotiated contract. It’s possible that the new contract reduces prices over time to reduce the impact on Afilias.

The full annual report is here.