10 ms·

What the heck happened with .org?

255 points by soheilpro 6y ago

julianlam 6y ago
> ... by 2018, ISOC was sitting on a pretty large ongoing revenue stream in the form of .org registration fees. However, ISOC management felt that having essentially all of their funding dependent on one revenue source was unwise and that actually running .org was a mismatch with ISOC’s main mission. Instead, they entered into a deal to sell PIR (and hence the .org contract) to a private equity firm called Ethos Capital, which is where things get interesting. This sounds like a rather shortsighted decision, to give up a very reliable source of recurring revenue because you'd rather only have multiple smaller sources of revenue... why not both?
- judge2020 6y ago
  The reasoning sounds like a facade since it's unlikely that .org registrations and renewals will slow down anytime soon.
- nikanj 6y ago
  The current situation results in money ending up in the pockets of ISOC. By doing the deal, the future revenue would go into the pockets of a private equity firm instead, a much better deal for the people running the private equity firm - who incidentally happened to be the same people making the decision!
  - dathinab 6y ago
    That, But also the contract ends in 2029. Trying to sell it now while it's still worth something and user the money to establish multiple streams of income which don't have the risk of abruptly ending in 2029 it's on itself not a bad idea. Just that the moment you do so in a way which might privatelty profit you massively people stop trusting you anyway.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  Or they could have invested a portion of their income for the past 20 years and built an endowment while still having a nice revenue stream. Nobody has explained where all their cash disappeared to.
  - est31 6y ago
    They can still start doing it.
  - dathinab 6y ago
    > Nobody has explained where all their cash disappeared to. As a non profit organization they had to inform certain institutions about it. Just because it's not publicum didn't mean it's mismanaged. Through way to high salaries are sadly quite typical for this kind of organizations. (Kind=Npo which "gets" large amounts of money each year)
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > This sounds like a rather short-sighted decision It wasn't shortsighted at all ... it was a ruse.
- jandrese 6y ago
  Its nonsensical. They get almost all of their funding from one source, which they say is a bad idea even though the income stream is very reliable for the foreseeable future. So their plan is to get rid of it and replace it with...what exactly? Donations? Some other kind of industry that they have not mentioned yet? The plan seemed to start and end with selling off their primary revenue stream.
  - scatters 6y ago
    Assuming it was sold for what it was worth, the selling price could have been used as an endowment to purchase investments with a similar cashflow/risk profile but greater diversification so lesser risk overall. This is pretty basic economics: the value of an investment is the NPV of its future cashflows.
    - tw04 6y ago
      What possible investment could ever match the risk:return of .org and where do I sign up? That is about the most risk free/cash positive investment in the history of mankind. Short of cornering the worldwide market on oxygen you aren't going to find a better investment.
      - dathinab 6y ago
        The .org contract ends in 2029! No guarantees that it will be renewed.
        trianglem 6y ago
        That is still like having a golden goose for nearly a decade.
        felipelemos 6y ago
        From article: "One interesting fact about these contracts is that they are effectively perpetual: the contracts themselves are for quite long terms and registry agreements typically provide for automatic renewal except under cases of significant misbehavior by the registry. In other words, this is a more or less permanent claim on the revenues for a given TLD."
- donmcronald 6y ago
  I don't think anyone cares about ISOC beyond them having control of .org. Really, what do they do? By selling to Ethos, they'd get out of the public's purview. Then they could take the billion dollars and give contracts "to better the internet" to friends, family, and relatives. Free money!
  - fanf2 6y ago
    ISOC provides financial backing for the IETF and the RFC Editor, and does a bunch of lobbying and Internet growth/promotion projects.
Proven 6y ago
For how long will these busybodies keep belaboring this non-issue? That alone makes me want to see it sold to to highest bidder.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
notRobot 6y ago
> .edu: for educational institutions Only for US educational institutions, or those who got a domain before 2001: https://www.farsightsecurity.com/blog/txt-record/edu-investigation-20160825/ https://www.farsightsecurity.com/blog/txt-record/edu-investi...
wyclif 6y ago
What are the implications for consumers, orgs, or businesses who register .org domains going forward, compared to registering a .com, .net, or other top-level domains?
- wmf 6y ago
  There are no implications for now since the status quo will remain. But it sounds like ISOC will continue to look for a way to restructure their finances so there's likely to be future discussion about doing something with .org.
  - abiogenesis 6y ago
    They are also free to increase the .org pricing, which they can use to justify the Ethos sale.
tasuki 6y ago
This is going to keep reoccurring. The Handshake project [1] attempts to decentralize the DNS root zone (using a blockchain what else). If, like me, you're suspicious about anything blockchain, a fun fact about Handshake: the developers took $10 million of VC money and donated it to Free and Open Source foundations [2]. That was actual cash donated, not magical internet money (though magical internet money was also donated). Some coins were premined. 80% of those were airdropped to GitHub users. If you had more than 15 followers in February 2019, you can still claim your airdrop [3]! (Disclaimer: this is what got me interested in Handshake) [1] https://handshake.org/ https://handshake.org/ [2] https://handshake.org/grant-sponsors/ https://handshake.org/grant-sponsors/ [3] https://handshake.org/claim/ https://handshake.org/claim/
- andrewstuart 6y ago
  When I hear "ICO/coins/mines/tokens/blockchain" my brain switches to "scam mode" and I switch to something else.
  - tasuki 6y ago
    I have the same visceral reaction. Is it possible the "scam mode" label is incorrect in this case? I guess you could say they scammed the VCs to donate their money to various nonprofits... https://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-receives-1-million-from-handshake https://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-receives-1... https://www.gnome.org/news/2018/08/gnome-foundation-receives-400000-from-handshake-org/ https://www.gnome.org/news/2018/08/gnome-foundation-receives... https://www.debian.org/News/2019/20190329 https://www.debian.org/News/2019/20190329 Modern day Robin Hood?
  - 101404 6y ago
    It was the same in 2000 with anything internet, and then again some years later with Web 2.0. Simply switching to "scam mode" may sound good in a forum post, but you miss the interesting stuff too.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
jandrese 6y ago
> a promise not to raise prices by more than 10%/year for 8 years Yeah, that's the kind of shit that made me cancel my cable service.
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  They don’t care about you. Most companies aren’t going to lose their brand identity for $100
mirimir 6y ago
> Additionally, in the summer of 2019, PIR’s ten year agreement with ICANN renewed, but under new terms: looser contractual conditions to mirror those for the new gTLDs (yes, including .wtf), including the removal of a price cap and certain other provisions. It's seems like something got hugely screwed up in PIR's bylaws. I mean, with a name like "Public Interest Registry", you'd think that serving the public interest would be its top priority.
- specialist 6y ago
  Do the owners (registrants) of domains have any standing in these TLD decisions? Any major change (eg sale) of .org TLD should be put to a vote of the all the .org registrants. Governance. It always boils down to governance. No taxation without representation, and all that.
  - bitxbitxbitcoin 6y ago
    They have absolutely no say in the current system and are completely at the mercy of these centralized powers.
ksec 6y ago
I would like to take this opportunity to ask, What happened to .web? .web in my view is the only possible challenger to .com, but it has been years, and those dispute seems endless with no update.
- zrm 6y ago
  > .web in my view is the only possible challenger to .com Is .biz not in the running? Or .site? Why not .hot? The true challenger to .com is clearly .wtf. Using .web doesn't even make sense, because it's a protocol. If you're example.web, your website is www.example.web? Kind of redundant. And then is your mail server mail.example.web? But it's an SMTP server, not a web server. What you really want to replace .com isn't some other general purpose TLD of the same kind anyway, it's the domain-specific ones. Let Ford Motor Company have ford.car and the Ford Foundation have ford.org and the Ford Theatre have ford.theatre and the Ford Cup have ford.tennis etc. Which also prevents this: https://nissan.com/ https://nissan.com/ Because then Nissan Motor could be using nissan.car instead of having a bitter dispute with Nissan Computer because they registered the name first.
- rswail 6y ago
  .net was/is supposed to be for people/orgs/companies that are on the net. Initially its purpose was for ISPs and other infra orgs, but it's more general now. .web is about one particular technology on the .net :)
  - C1sc0cat 6y ago
    Yes back in the day .net was just for players and not for subs (civilians)
- dmulholl 6y ago
  I've always thought 'web' should be at the other end of the domain, instead of 'www'. It takes literally one-ninth the time to say.
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
gorgoiler 6y ago
It’s not hard to see why .ORG rattled so many cages. It seems like there’s a lot of passive anger of old school vs new money, even now in 2020. Thinking about domains, it doesn’t take too long to get into the politics of property. How do you think domain names should work? Should you just be able to buy them openly? If one person has all the money, then should they be allowed to buy all the domain names? Should they be limited to some sensible amount per person? Is a company a person? Should companies be limited in the same way? If there is a limit, should the price be capped as well, or left open to the market? Those with the most money get to control the best domains? Personally: I am grateful that we still have a system that works for all and I’m very motivated to not see it go the way of rampant commercialism. Mozilla’s post helps me proselytize.
chx 6y ago
I remember those days when a single person -- usually working for free -- made the domain decisions. Specifically I remember Hungary. Registering under the .hu domain was free for a while (it started in '91 Oct) and the rules were made up by the person registering because, well, who else? and in '96 an organization not fitting those rules laid immense pressure to get the domain they wanted so said person resigned. And then the Council of Hungarian Internet Providers was established and the free domains were gone...
- rrdharan 6y ago
  Amusingly this made me go check if cthul.hu was registered. The domain name has been claimed since 2000 (according to Whois.net). Hope I didn’t trigger the awakening...
rswail 6y ago
So if ".org" is supposed to be for non-profits (and not-for-profits?) and ISOC/PIR are supposed to be running the .org registry for two reasons: 1. To provide a gTLD for non-profits at an affordable price 2. To provide an ongoing income stream for ISOC Given that those are the professed reasons, then ISOC's management and diversification of its revenue stream is ISOC's problem to solve, however, selling its revenue stream should/must not interfere with the other purpose of the ".org" gTLD. A stable revenue stream like ".org" is a valuable thing in its own right. ISOC could sell the rights to that stream now, receiving a fixed amount for endowment and other investments, or it can plan around that revenue stream. Either way, the other primary purpose of the gTLD has equal weight to ISOC/IETF etc need for income.
- psychoslave 6y ago
  >So if ".org" is supposed to be for non-profits (and not-for-profits?) Where I live what English generally name a "non-profit" have a single important juridical difference: the assets of the organization belongs to the organization, and can not be transferred directly to founders or whoever has control of its board. Also a non-profit can benefit from some advantages on fiscal side that a for-profit can not, but the latter will far more likely "optimize" their contribution to public services.
xorcist 6y ago
Hopefully this is indicative of where Mozilla stands on this. It would be great if there could be a net wide push to relieve ISOC of their .org duties, preferably before 2029. It feels strange to say this, because ISOC is a legitimate organization with more than 50k members world wide. Mozilla and EFF have shown themselves to be very good Internet citizens with Let's Encrypt and are likely more than capable of running a top domain operation too.
- drdec 6y ago
  Ideally, you would address the underlying issues that caused this attempt to cash in on the .org domain at the same time. Or you would just be making whichever organization you choose a target for the underhanded types that infiltrated ISOC. Perhaps the key would be to signal that for the next contract, priority would be given to bidders that are owned by multiple organizations. Also require the owners to be non-profit. So a new XYZ co-owned by Mozilla, EFF and ISOC might work. You'd want at least three non-profit owners and for the new company to have by-laws prohibiting any one company from accumulating more than 50% control.
C1sc0cat 6y ago
Good summary though id disagree about the .org == "us non profit" Should have gone with Poptels (already ran .coop) bid back in 2002 - though I suspect that ICAN did not find us as biddable as they would like.
making_things 6y ago
When the US allowed commercial activity seems like they forgot to make a carve-out set of rules for non-profits. Are the .edu domain restrictions set by laws established back then or by ICANN and can therefore theoretically be changed without any input by governments?
ohashi 6y ago
The analysis they link to from Milton Mueller is garbage. His complete faith in public interest commitments is laughable. See http://www.circleid.com/posts/20200311-the-sad-story-of-private-public-interest-commitments-pics/ http://www.circleid.com/posts/20200311-the-sad-story-of-priv...

255 points by soheilpro 6y ago

> ... by 2018, ISOC was sitting on a pretty large ongoing revenue stream in the form of .org registration fees. However, ISOC management felt that having essentially all of their funding dependent on one revenue source was unwise and that actually running .org was a mismatch with ISOC’s main mission. Instead, they entered into a deal to sell PIR (and hence the .org contract) to a private equity firm called Ethos Capital, which is where things get interesting. This sounds like a rather shortsighted decision, to give up a very reliable source of recurring revenue because you'd rather only have multiple smaller sources of revenue... why not both?

judge2020 6y ago
The reasoning sounds like a facade since it's unlikely that .org registrations and renewals will slow down anytime soon.
nikanj 6y ago
The current situation results in money ending up in the pockets of ISOC. By doing the deal, the future revenue would go into the pockets of a private equity firm instead, a much better deal for the people running the private equity firm - who incidentally happened to be the same people making the decision!
- dathinab 6y ago
  That, But also the contract ends in 2029. Trying to sell it now while it's still worth something and user the money to establish multiple streams of income which don't have the risk of abruptly ending in 2029 it's on itself not a bad idea. Just that the moment you do so in a way which might privatelty profit you massively people stop trusting you anyway.
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
Or they could have invested a portion of their income for the past 20 years and built an endowment while still having a nice revenue stream. Nobody has explained where all their cash disappeared to.
- est31 6y ago
  They can still start doing it.
- dathinab 6y ago
  > Nobody has explained where all their cash disappeared to. As a non profit organization they had to inform certain institutions about it. Just because it's not publicum didn't mean it's mismanaged. Through way to high salaries are sadly quite typical for this kind of organizations. (Kind=Npo which "gets" large amounts of money each year)
redis_mlc 6y ago
> This sounds like a rather short-sighted decision It wasn't shortsighted at all ... it was a ruse.
jandrese 6y ago
Its nonsensical. They get almost all of their funding from one source, which they say is a bad idea even though the income stream is very reliable for the foreseeable future. So their plan is to get rid of it and replace it with...what exactly? Donations? Some other kind of industry that they have not mentioned yet? The plan seemed to start and end with selling off their primary revenue stream.
- scatters 6y ago
  Assuming it was sold for what it was worth, the selling price could have been used as an endowment to purchase investments with a similar cashflow/risk profile but greater diversification so lesser risk overall. This is pretty basic economics: the value of an investment is the NPV of its future cashflows.
  - tw04 6y ago
    What possible investment could ever match the risk:return of .org and where do I sign up? That is about the most risk free/cash positive investment in the history of mankind. Short of cornering the worldwide market on oxygen you aren't going to find a better investment.
    - dathinab 6y ago
      The .org contract ends in 2029! No guarantees that it will be renewed.
      - trianglem 6y ago
        That is still like having a golden goose for nearly a decade.
      - felipelemos 6y ago
        From article: "One interesting fact about these contracts is that they are effectively perpetual: the contracts themselves are for quite long terms and registry agreements typically provide for automatic renewal except under cases of significant misbehavior by the registry. In other words, this is a more or less permanent claim on the revenues for a given TLD."
donmcronald 6y ago
I don't think anyone cares about ISOC beyond them having control of .org. Really, what do they do? By selling to Ethos, they'd get out of the public's purview. Then they could take the billion dollars and give contracts "to better the internet" to friends, family, and relatives. Free money!
- fanf2 6y ago
  ISOC provides financial backing for the IETF and the RFC Editor, and does a bunch of lobbying and Internet growth/promotion projects.

Proven 6y ago

For how long will these busybodies keep belaboring this non-issue? That alone makes me want to see it sold to to highest bidder.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

notRobot 6y ago

> .edu: for educational institutions Only for US educational institutions, or those who got a domain before 2001: https://www.farsightsecurity.com/blog/txt-record/edu-investigation-20160825/ https://www.farsightsecurity.com/blog/txt-record/edu-investi...

wyclif 6y ago

What are the implications for consumers, orgs, or businesses who register .org domains going forward, compared to registering a .com, .net, or other top-level domains?

wmf 6y ago
There are no implications for now since the status quo will remain. But it sounds like ISOC will continue to look for a way to restructure their finances so there's likely to be future discussion about doing something with .org.
- abiogenesis 6y ago
  They are also free to increase the .org pricing, which they can use to justify the Ethos sale.

tasuki 6y ago

This is going to keep reoccurring. The Handshake project [1] attempts to decentralize the DNS root zone (using a blockchain what else). If, like me, you're suspicious about anything blockchain, a fun fact about Handshake: the developers took $10 million of VC money and donated it to Free and Open Source foundations [2]. That was actual cash donated, not magical internet money (though magical internet money was also donated). Some coins were premined. 80% of those were airdropped to GitHub users. If you had more than 15 followers in February 2019, you can still claim your airdrop [3]! (Disclaimer: this is what got me interested in Handshake) [1] https://handshake.org/ https://handshake.org/ [2] https://handshake.org/grant-sponsors/ https://handshake.org/grant-sponsors/ [3] https://handshake.org/claim/ https://handshake.org/claim/

andrewstuart 6y ago
When I hear "ICO/coins/mines/tokens/blockchain" my brain switches to "scam mode" and I switch to something else.
- tasuki 6y ago
  I have the same visceral reaction. Is it possible the "scam mode" label is incorrect in this case? I guess you could say they scammed the VCs to donate their money to various nonprofits... https://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-receives-1-million-from-handshake https://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-receives-1... https://www.gnome.org/news/2018/08/gnome-foundation-receives-400000-from-handshake-org/ https://www.gnome.org/news/2018/08/gnome-foundation-receives... https://www.debian.org/News/2019/20190329 https://www.debian.org/News/2019/20190329 Modern day Robin Hood?
- 101404 6y ago
  It was the same in 2000 with anything internet, and then again some years later with Web 2.0. Simply switching to "scam mode" may sound good in a forum post, but you miss the interesting stuff too.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago

jandrese 6y ago

> a promise not to raise prices by more than 10%/year for 8 years Yeah, that's the kind of shit that made me cancel my cable service.

tinus_hn 6y ago
They don’t care about you. Most companies aren’t going to lose their brand identity for $100

mirimir 6y ago

> Additionally, in the summer of 2019, PIR’s ten year agreement with ICANN renewed, but under new terms: looser contractual conditions to mirror those for the new gTLDs (yes, including .wtf), including the removal of a price cap and certain other provisions. It's seems like something got hugely screwed up in PIR's bylaws. I mean, with a name like "Public Interest Registry", you'd think that serving the public interest would be its top priority.

specialist 6y ago
Do the owners (registrants) of domains have any standing in these TLD decisions? Any major change (eg sale) of .org TLD should be put to a vote of the all the .org registrants. Governance. It always boils down to governance. No taxation without representation, and all that.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 6y ago
  They have absolutely no say in the current system and are completely at the mercy of these centralized powers.

ksec 6y ago

I would like to take this opportunity to ask, What happened to .web? .web in my view is the only possible challenger to .com, but it has been years, and those dispute seems endless with no update.

zrm 6y ago
> .web in my view is the only possible challenger to .com Is .biz not in the running? Or .site? Why not .hot? The true challenger to .com is clearly .wtf. Using .web doesn't even make sense, because it's a protocol. If you're example.web, your website is www.example.web? Kind of redundant. And then is your mail server mail.example.web? But it's an SMTP server, not a web server. What you really want to replace .com isn't some other general purpose TLD of the same kind anyway, it's the domain-specific ones. Let Ford Motor Company have ford.car and the Ford Foundation have ford.org and the Ford Theatre have ford.theatre and the Ford Cup have ford.tennis etc. Which also prevents this: https://nissan.com/ https://nissan.com/ Because then Nissan Motor could be using nissan.car instead of having a bitter dispute with Nissan Computer because they registered the name first.
rswail 6y ago
.net was/is supposed to be for people/orgs/companies that are on the net. Initially its purpose was for ISPs and other infra orgs, but it's more general now. .web is about one particular technology on the .net :)
- C1sc0cat 6y ago
  Yes back in the day .net was just for players and not for subs (civilians)
dmulholl 6y ago
I've always thought 'web' should be at the other end of the domain, instead of 'www'. It takes literally one-ninth the time to say.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago

gorgoiler 6y ago

It’s not hard to see why .ORG rattled so many cages. It seems like there’s a lot of passive anger of old school vs new money, even now in 2020. Thinking about domains, it doesn’t take too long to get into the politics of property. How do you think domain names should work? Should you just be able to buy them openly? If one person has all the money, then should they be allowed to buy all the domain names? Should they be limited to some sensible amount per person? Is a company a person? Should companies be limited in the same way? If there is a limit, should the price be capped as well, or left open to the market? Those with the most money get to control the best domains? Personally: I am grateful that we still have a system that works for all and I’m very motivated to not see it go the way of rampant commercialism. Mozilla’s post helps me proselytize.

chx 6y ago

I remember those days when a single person -- usually working for free -- made the domain decisions. Specifically I remember Hungary. Registering under the .hu domain was free for a while (it started in '91 Oct) and the rules were made up by the person registering because, well, who else? and in '96 an organization not fitting those rules laid immense pressure to get the domain they wanted so said person resigned. And then the Council of Hungarian Internet Providers was established and the free domains were gone...

rrdharan 6y ago
Amusingly this made me go check if cthul.hu was registered. The domain name has been claimed since 2000 (according to Whois.net). Hope I didn’t trigger the awakening...

rswail 6y ago

So if ".org" is supposed to be for non-profits (and not-for-profits?) and ISOC/PIR are supposed to be running the .org registry for two reasons: 1. To provide a gTLD for non-profits at an affordable price 2. To provide an ongoing income stream for ISOC Given that those are the professed reasons, then ISOC's management and diversification of its revenue stream is ISOC's problem to solve, however, selling its revenue stream should/must not interfere with the other purpose of the ".org" gTLD. A stable revenue stream like ".org" is a valuable thing in its own right. ISOC could sell the rights to that stream now, receiving a fixed amount for endowment and other investments, or it can plan around that revenue stream. Either way, the other primary purpose of the gTLD has equal weight to ISOC/IETF etc need for income.

psychoslave 6y ago
>So if ".org" is supposed to be for non-profits (and not-for-profits?) Where I live what English generally name a "non-profit" have a single important juridical difference: the assets of the organization belongs to the organization, and can not be transferred directly to founders or whoever has control of its board. Also a non-profit can benefit from some advantages on fiscal side that a for-profit can not, but the latter will far more likely "optimize" their contribution to public services.

xorcist 6y ago

Hopefully this is indicative of where Mozilla stands on this. It would be great if there could be a net wide push to relieve ISOC of their .org duties, preferably before 2029. It feels strange to say this, because ISOC is a legitimate organization with more than 50k members world wide. Mozilla and EFF have shown themselves to be very good Internet citizens with Let's Encrypt and are likely more than capable of running a top domain operation too.

drdec 6y ago
Ideally, you would address the underlying issues that caused this attempt to cash in on the .org domain at the same time. Or you would just be making whichever organization you choose a target for the underhanded types that infiltrated ISOC. Perhaps the key would be to signal that for the next contract, priority would be given to bidders that are owned by multiple organizations. Also require the owners to be non-profit. So a new XYZ co-owned by Mozilla, EFF and ISOC might work. You'd want at least three non-profit owners and for the new company to have by-laws prohibiting any one company from accumulating more than 50% control.

C1sc0cat 6y ago

Good summary though id disagree about the .org == "us non profit" Should have gone with Poptels (already ran .coop) bid back in 2002 - though I suspect that ICAN did not find us as biddable as they would like.

making_things 6y ago

When the US allowed commercial activity seems like they forgot to make a carve-out set of rules for non-profits. Are the .edu domain restrictions set by laws established back then or by ICANN and can therefore theoretically be changed without any input by governments?

ohashi 6y ago

The analysis they link to from Milton Mueller is garbage. His complete faith in public interest commitments is laughable. See http://www.circleid.com/posts/20200311-the-sad-story-of-private-public-interest-commitments-pics/ http://www.circleid.com/posts/20200311-the-sad-story-of-priv...