ISOC sells PIR

[Joly MacFie]

And then another concern, perhaps more minor but not negligible, might be
the rumblings about COI of ISOC Chapters in the At-Large etc during the PIR
pricing discussion.



On Thu, Nov 14, 2019 at 6:35 AM Joly MacFie <jolynyc at gmail.com> wrote:

> I could not give you letter and verse, but my long time understanding has
> been that ISOC's dependence on an owned commercial operation as its primary
> funder has had the potential to be problematical in terms of its non-profit
> status. Thus the talk of "diversification" of its income. I suspect this
> move was very much prompted by some such concern.
>
> joly
>
> On Thu, Nov 14, 2019 at 6:10 AM Ayden Férdeline <icann at ferdeline.com>
> wrote:
>
>> This is a very significant decision in the history of ISOC.
>>
>> Given PIR returned $48 million to ISOC last year, and has consistently
>> funded 90% or more of ISOC's annual budget over the past decade, it is a
>> little surprising to me that they have sought to sell this very lucrative
>> asset. I am so curious as to what terms they have negotiated and I wish
>> there was a bit more transparency here, given the final price will become
>> public knowledge next time they file their tax return.
>>
>> That said, I am willing to accept that ISOC has negotiated a good deal
>> that will see it able to create an endowment able to support its work for
>> years to come.
>>
>> I am also encouraged that ISOC is clearly no longer dependent on or
>> loosely accountable to an arm of the US government, given it has gone down
>> this route (and now has a non-US CEO for the first time in its history). I
>> think both are good developments.
>>
>> But I still have concerns. Perhaps I've been reading too much on the
>> impact on venture capital on big pharma and live sciences, but venture
>> capital firms do strike me as caring more about profits than they do about
>> doing good.
>>
>> I see there being ways for Ethos to increase margins without raising fees
>> in the short term (i.e. achieving efficiencies by moving technical services
>> away from Affilias), but in the mid- to long-term, it seems very plausible
>> to me that registration fees are going to rise.
>>
>> Ayden
>>
>>
>> ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>> On Wednesday, 13 November 2019 22:12, Kathy Kleiman <kathy at DNRC.TECH>
>> wrote:
>>
>> price increases.... and "rights protections mechanisms" never intended
>> for legacy gTLDs such as .COM, .ORG and .NET.
>>
>> Our member -- Electronic Frontier Foundation -- has shared the dangers of
>> extending the URS (ultra-fast domain name suspension process) to .ORG
>> registrants in the .ORG contract renewal when the URS was never intended
>> for the complex evaluation of noncommercial vs. commercial domain name
>> disputes by the GNSO.
>>
>> EFF Council and NCSG member Mitch Stoltz said:
>>
>> — *"When non-profit organizations* use brand names and other commercial
>> trademarks, it's often to call out corporations for their misdeeds — a
>> classic First Amendment-protected activity. That means challenges to domain
>> names in .org need more careful, thorough consideration than URS can
>> provide. Adding URS to the .org domain puts non-profit organizations who
>> strive to hold powerful corporations and governments accountable at risk of
>> losing their domain names, effectively removing those organizations from
>> the Internet until they can register a new name and teach the public how to
>> find it. Losing a domain name means losing search engine placement,
>> breaking every inbound link to the website, and knocking email and other
>> vital services offline."
>>
>>
>> http://www.circleid.com/posts/20190806_urs_is_a_bad_fit_for_dot_org_says_eff/
>>
>> Issue is still before ICANN and this new turn of events is very
>> troubling.
>>
>> Best, Kathy
>>
>> On 11/13/2019 1:04 PM, Ayden Férdeline wrote:
>>
>> Price increase on .org domains in 3, 2, 1…
>>
>> ... and when that happens, we really must hold ICANN org to account to
>> justify its decision to remove price caps.
>>
>> -- Ayden
>>
>>
>> ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>> On Wednesday, 13 November 2019 18:38, Stephanie Perrin
>> <stephanie.perrin at MAIL.UTORONTO.CA> <stephanie.perrin at MAIL.UTORONTO.CA>
>> wrote:
>>
>>  I must say, this casts the decision to drop price caps for .org in a
>> slightly different light.  I will keep you posted as I learn more.
>>
>>
>>
>> https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191113005661/en/Ethos-Capital-Acquire-Public-Interest-Registry-Internet
>>
>>
>> Stephanie Perrin
>>
>> NCSG Chair
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Kathy Kleiman
>> President, Domain Name Rights Coalition
>>
>>
>>
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