ICANN Rejects Sale of .ORG Registry by PIR

[engine]

ICANN has rejected the sale of the .ORG registry by PIR to Ethos Capital.

After completing extensive due diligence, the ICANN Board finds that withholding consent of the transfer of PIR from the Internet Society (ISOC) to Ethos Capital is reasonable, and the right thing to do.

https://www.icann.org/news/blog/icann-board-withholds-consent-for-a-change-of-control-of-the-public-interest-registry-pir

Earlier stories
ICANN Further Delays Sale of .ORG Registry by PIR [webmasterworld.com]
ICANN to Review Sale of .ORG Registry by PIR [webmasterworld.com]
.Org Registry Acquired By Private Equity Company [webmasterworld.com]

[ronin]

See also:

ICANN Rejects .ORG Sale to Private Equity Firm Ethos Capital (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/victory-icann-rejects-org-sale-private-equity-firm-ethos-capital

[jmccormac]

No doubt that this came as a shock to Ethos, the board of ICANN and the lobbyists/PR people who expected this to go through without a hitch.

Regards...jmcc

[topr8]

so glad to hear this ... i can't believe that ICANNN actually did the right thing.

i completely agree with jmccormac, i imagine it was a shock to various monied vested interest.

it is worrying though as time goes on ... there will be ever greater pressure forcommercial ventures to take over what should not be commercial.

[tangor]

the web in general is all commercial these days.

[jmccormac]

Was doing some research on web hsoter ownership and one of the interersting things was that only 2.4% of .ORG was on auction/sale sites. The percentage for .COM was just over 4%. Most domain names have no actively developed website. The optics on the deal looked bad. But the .ORG isn't really like other gTLDs and is more like a ccTLd in the way that people think of it as their ccTLD. ICANN was probably going to approve the deal until the CA AG got involved.

Regards...jmcc