[article] Are ISOC=?utf-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_claims_about_.org=E2=80=99s_?=history bogus?

[Mueller, Milton L]

Good story, but this isn’t “news” to me, being an old timer I was there for that history.

The story is basically correct, but needs an important correction. When the decision to divest .org was first made, there were parties (notably Mike Roberts) who wanted .org to become a restricted domain. I.e., you would have to prove you were a nonprofit, have specific legal status, in order to register in .org. They were anticipating a major purge of the domain as a result.

The young Noncommercial Domain Name Holders constituency, precursor to today’s NCSG, played a big role in shooting that idea down. We saw that restriction as a barrier to civil society use of the domain, and a way of imposing controls and limiting its growth. We fought hard to make it policy that .org would remain an open and unrestricted domain, and that the association with causes, civil society, and nonprofits would be based on reputation and choice and not on restrictions.


Dr. Milton L Mueller
Georgia Institute of Technology
School of Public Policy



From: NCSG-Discuss <NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU> On Behalf Of Ayden Férdeline
Sent: Monday, December 2, 2019 5:11 PM
To: NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: [article] Are ISOC’s claims about .org’s history bogus?

A new piece of information about the history of .ORG and PIR has emerged in this story<http://domainincite.com/25023-are-isocs-claims-about-orgs-history-bogus> in DomainIncite today (emphasis added):

"In 2001, when ICANN inked a deal with Verisign to spin off .org into a new registry, there was no ambiguity whatsoever.

In announcing the deal, ICANN said that it would “return the .org registry to its original purpose” and .org would return to “to its originally intended function as a registry operated by and for non-profit organizations” ...

The prize was so potentially lucrative that Verisign even agreed to give a $5 million endowment — no questions asked — to the successor registry, for use relaunching or promoting .org.

The only catch was that the new registry had to be a non-profit. Commercial registries — Verisign competitors such as Neustar — wouldn’t get the money."

http://domainincite.com/25023-are-isocs-claims-about-orgs-history-bogus

Ayden Férdeline
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