4 ms·

Serious question, what are the actual downsides of this, if any? Or is the backlash due to the "private equity" being associated with evil? Doesn't seem like an

Serious question, what are the actual downsides of this, if any? Or is the backlash due to the "private equity" being associated with evil? Doesn't seem like anything is actually changing other than who issues .org?

yumraj 7y ago
Evil or not, Private equity by definition is focused on maximizing profit. You can do the math.
thenewnewguy 7y ago
Serious question, did you even read the page? Specifically, the part where it makes specific complaints about the 2019 .org registry agreement, such as the ability to raise registration fees without ICANN approval?
- partiallypro 7y ago
  So it goes up by $1 or $15, how does that hurt non-profits? They aren't going to out price other TLDs, the market isn't that elastic.
  - robjan 7y ago
    If you have already owned your .org, have used it in publicity materials, use it for all of your emails etc. then yes you are pretty much stuck with that domain no matter how much they jack up the price. So the domain is inelastic, that is a change in price will not significantly change demand for those who already own them.
    - techsupporter 7y ago
      Exactly. As a community, we have routinely given the advice to “own your identity” by buying a domain. Since most of the good com domains are long bought, someone newer to the internet is likely to have looked at org. If someone took us up on our advice in, say, 2014 that means that he or she has had a domain for five years. Five years to integrate that into a life in various ways, remembered or not. And now, that thing could cost $75/year with no recourse. Then there are people like me. My org domain is so old it can legally drink and soon be able to run for Congress. What is it worth to me? $200/year? $500? $1,000? I don’t know and it sucks to have to consider yet another astoundingly high cost of “living” in a world that keeps going up in cost.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    > So it goes up by $1 or $15, how does that hurt non-profits? In the aggregate, that's many, many millions of dollars going into Ethos Capital's pockets at the expense of charities and other non-profit organizations. Who says it stops at $15, too?
  - Bnshsysjab 7y ago
    It doesn’t have to be fair. They could charge x.org $15 and y.org $150,000.
  - Ayesh 7y ago
    Registry can set prices for individual domains as well (see what Donut is doing). This means that a new domain could be priced $1, and renewal of WordPress.org set to $50, and npr.org to $50 million. What are you gonna do? Change your domain to something else? Yeah good luck.
andrewflnr 7y ago
We can expect every .org owner, most of them non-profits and many not well-funded, to be squeezed and then shaken down for money. Not tomorrow, but it will start as soon as they think they can get away with it.
shakna 7y ago
Uncapped fees that can be raised arbitrarily. The few other types this happened, it has resulted in exorbitant prices across the board.
dogecoinbase 7y ago
Challenging to imagine any potential downsides of granting the management of a commons devoted to nonprofits to a profit-driven monopoly.
tryptophan 7y ago
It costs like 3$/year (or less probably) to register a domain name. But once you build your brand/website/etc you are tied to your domain name, which is tied to that registry. This gives the registry huge leverage over you. That 3$ that it actually costs them to run it can increase to whatever price they think you will be willing to pay and you can't not pay it...you would lose your spot and identity on the internet. Its not like with registrars, like godaddy, ghandi, bluehost, etc... that you can switch between in like 24 hrs. IIRC .orgs were price controlled, so the price couldn't rise, but with this takeover, the price controls have gone away.
- JonathonW 7y ago
  PIR currently charges registrars about $9/year per domain, with registrars allowed to mark that up however much they want without restrictions-- AFAIK neither the "wholesale" price nor the actual price from registrars is currently price controlled by ICANN. Regardless, I don't see how moving .org's operations from a non-profit (PIR) to a private equity firm benefits anyone, except the owners of said private equity firm. You're basically taking something that could operate at-cost and giving it a mandate to turn a profit-- the only way that happens is if prices go up. Likely a lot.
  - techsupporter 7y ago
    > AFAIK neither the "wholesale" price nor the actual price from registrars is currently price controlled by ICANN. Important point: just before this rigged bid went through, ICANN conveniently decided to remove the price cap for .org registry prices.
  - ohashi 7y ago
    PIR is already a rent-seeking organization designed to fund Internet Society. They don't actually handle the registry at all. It's outsourced, they put it out to bid. If you look at financials, they are paying <$2/domain. Yes, ICANN granted a monopoly to ISOC in the form of PIR, who have been allowed to increase prices consistently for years but at a capped rate. And they wanted more. As costs have gone down. Then everyone at ICANN talks about not being a price regulator and free markets. Ignoring the fact it's a monopoly, and not one ISOC/PIR played any role in creating, it was a gift from ICANN. A perpetual, no bid, contract with ever increasing prices on a decreasing cost monopoly good.
visiblink 7y ago
Have a look at The Register's article on the subject: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/20/org_registry_sale_shambles/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/20/org_registry_sale_s...
throw7 7y ago
This is an example of rent-seeking.
btown 7y ago
I haven't read the 2019 rules, but if the letter is to be believed, the new rule creates: > The power to implement processes to suspend domain names based on accusations of “activity contrary to applicable law.” The .ORG registry should not implement such processes without understanding how state actors frequently target NGOs with allegations of illegal activity. Under the previous rules, the registry level could (more or less) resist being bullied into taking down a domain due to government pressure, though the government could implement a firewall and threaten other service providers. Now, though, a large country could say "we will block .org domains, or .org DNS resolutions, if you don't suspend an activist organization's domain globally," and there would then be a PROFIT MOTIVE to take down the domain GLOBALLY, as the value of the registrar would decrease if .org domains were blocked in that country. And this would be permitted by the 2019 rules. This gives censors tremendous leverage to implement censorship around the globe. I'm all for the role of private equity in helping companies to grow - while there are certainly firms that operate in bad faith, the PE industry overall doesn't deserve the bad rap it gets in the media. But IMO this sale should absolutely be disallowed from a humanitarian and international security perspective. The incentives are just too badly aligned.
gowld 7y ago
"issues" == "controls". The worldwide non-commercial Internet being controlled by an unaccountable private corporation is evil on its face. Burden is on someone to prove otherwise.

yumraj 7y ago

Evil or not, Private equity by definition is focused on maximizing profit. You can do the math.

thenewnewguy 7y ago

Serious question, did you even read the page? Specifically, the part where it makes specific complaints about the 2019 .org registry agreement, such as the ability to raise registration fees without ICANN approval?

partiallypro 7y ago
So it goes up by $1 or $15, how does that hurt non-profits? They aren't going to out price other TLDs, the market isn't that elastic.
- robjan 7y ago
  If you have already owned your .org, have used it in publicity materials, use it for all of your emails etc. then yes you are pretty much stuck with that domain no matter how much they jack up the price. So the domain is inelastic, that is a change in price will not significantly change demand for those who already own them.
  - techsupporter 7y ago
    Exactly. As a community, we have routinely given the advice to “own your identity” by buying a domain. Since most of the good com domains are long bought, someone newer to the internet is likely to have looked at org. If someone took us up on our advice in, say, 2014 that means that he or she has had a domain for five years. Five years to integrate that into a life in various ways, remembered or not. And now, that thing could cost $75/year with no recourse. Then there are people like me. My org domain is so old it can legally drink and soon be able to run for Congress. What is it worth to me? $200/year? $500? $1,000? I don’t know and it sucks to have to consider yet another astoundingly high cost of “living” in a world that keeps going up in cost.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  > So it goes up by $1 or $15, how does that hurt non-profits? In the aggregate, that's many, many millions of dollars going into Ethos Capital's pockets at the expense of charities and other non-profit organizations. Who says it stops at $15, too?
- Bnshsysjab 7y ago
  It doesn’t have to be fair. They could charge x.org $15 and y.org $150,000.
- Ayesh 7y ago
  Registry can set prices for individual domains as well (see what Donut is doing). This means that a new domain could be priced $1, and renewal of WordPress.org set to $50, and npr.org to $50 million. What are you gonna do? Change your domain to something else? Yeah good luck.

andrewflnr 7y ago

We can expect every .org owner, most of them non-profits and many not well-funded, to be squeezed and then shaken down for money. Not tomorrow, but it will start as soon as they think they can get away with it.

shakna 7y ago

Uncapped fees that can be raised arbitrarily. The few other types this happened, it has resulted in exorbitant prices across the board.

dogecoinbase 7y ago

Challenging to imagine any potential downsides of granting the management of a commons devoted to nonprofits to a profit-driven monopoly.

tryptophan 7y ago

It costs like 3$/year (or less probably) to register a domain name. But once you build your brand/website/etc you are tied to your domain name, which is tied to that registry. This gives the registry huge leverage over you. That 3$ that it actually costs them to run it can increase to whatever price they think you will be willing to pay and you can't not pay it...you would lose your spot and identity on the internet. Its not like with registrars, like godaddy, ghandi, bluehost, etc... that you can switch between in like 24 hrs. IIRC .orgs were price controlled, so the price couldn't rise, but with this takeover, the price controls have gone away.

JonathonW 7y ago
PIR currently charges registrars about $9/year per domain, with registrars allowed to mark that up however much they want without restrictions-- AFAIK neither the "wholesale" price nor the actual price from registrars is currently price controlled by ICANN. Regardless, I don't see how moving .org's operations from a non-profit (PIR) to a private equity firm benefits anyone, except the owners of said private equity firm. You're basically taking something that could operate at-cost and giving it a mandate to turn a profit-- the only way that happens is if prices go up. Likely a lot.
- techsupporter 7y ago
  > AFAIK neither the "wholesale" price nor the actual price from registrars is currently price controlled by ICANN. Important point: just before this rigged bid went through, ICANN conveniently decided to remove the price cap for .org registry prices.
- ohashi 7y ago
  PIR is already a rent-seeking organization designed to fund Internet Society. They don't actually handle the registry at all. It's outsourced, they put it out to bid. If you look at financials, they are paying <$2/domain. Yes, ICANN granted a monopoly to ISOC in the form of PIR, who have been allowed to increase prices consistently for years but at a capped rate. And they wanted more. As costs have gone down. Then everyone at ICANN talks about not being a price regulator and free markets. Ignoring the fact it's a monopoly, and not one ISOC/PIR played any role in creating, it was a gift from ICANN. A perpetual, no bid, contract with ever increasing prices on a decreasing cost monopoly good.

visiblink 7y ago

Have a look at The Register's article on the subject: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/20/org_registry_sale_shambles/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/20/org_registry_sale_s...

throw7 7y ago

This is an example of rent-seeking.

btown 7y ago

I haven't read the 2019 rules, but if the letter is to be believed, the new rule creates: > The power to implement processes to suspend domain names based on accusations of “activity contrary to applicable law.” The .ORG registry should not implement such processes without understanding how state actors frequently target NGOs with allegations of illegal activity. Under the previous rules, the registry level could (more or less) resist being bullied into taking down a domain due to government pressure, though the government could implement a firewall and threaten other service providers. Now, though, a large country could say "we will block .org domains, or .org DNS resolutions, if you don't suspend an activist organization's domain globally," and there would then be a PROFIT MOTIVE to take down the domain GLOBALLY, as the value of the registrar would decrease if .org domains were blocked in that country. And this would be permitted by the 2019 rules. This gives censors tremendous leverage to implement censorship around the globe. I'm all for the role of private equity in helping companies to grow - while there are certainly firms that operate in bad faith, the PE industry overall doesn't deserve the bad rap it gets in the media. But IMO this sale should absolutely be disallowed from a humanitarian and international security perspective. The incentives are just too badly aligned.

gowld 7y ago

"issues" == "controls". The worldwide non-commercial Internet being controlled by an unaccountable private corporation is evil on its face. Burden is on someone to prove otherwise.