[article] Internet world despairs as non-profit .org sold for $$$$ to private equity firm, price caps axed

[Amr Elsadr]

Hi,

This all sounds good to me, and for the part of NCSG, seeking more information is a good thing irrespective of what investigative journalists come up with. What they do and what we do could very complement each other.

The suggestion to seek some kind of carve-out in the gTLD space specifically for CS as a matter of policy is also an interesting one, imo. Guessing there are different ways this could be done. Would this be something we might somehow need to address via the Sub Pro PDP?

Thanks.

Amr

> On Nov 24, 2019, at 3:47 PM, Sam Lanfranco <lanfran at yorku.ca> wrote:
>
> This is just a brief comment about the concern I raised earlier when I wrote “The history of who did what and who knew what when, as the decision was made to remove the price cap, and what followed, is yet to be known.”
>
> I have been involved in doing analysis and due diligence for business deals of a much smaller magnitude (10’s of millions of dollars) where the deep pocketed investor teams were looking at the purchase of ongoing enterprises. Based on that experience I am surprised that this PIR buyout deal could have been put in place as quickly as it appears if the idea was germinated after the price cap was removed.
>
> I have to join Amr in saying I am not sure what we should be asking of ICANN at the moment. We should convey that we are not happy with the turn of events, and express concern that this followed quickly on the removal of the price cap. But, as Amr points out, ICANN agreeing to some of the asks would set a bad precedent for how gTLD registry agreements are handled.
>
> More information? Certainly. This is a big enough story that some resourceful journalist will pull it together at some point, and I fear that the integrity of ISOC, ICANN and others might not look good.
>
> What else to do? As we see how this rolls out, maybe we should seek a repeat of the original .org experience and press for a similar new gTLD, say one attached to social business since that seems to be the direction the non-profit and community organization sectors are being pushed at the moment, or a gTLD based on similar non-commercial interests.
>
> Sam L.
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