A private equity firm wants to buy ‘.org’ for $1 billion. A Berkeley-based cooperative says, ‘not so fast’

[Joly MacFie]

ICYMI, Esther, Andrew, and Nora were on NPR yesterday.

I transcribed.
http://isoc.live/pir/2020-01-21_WBUR_PIR.pdf

Here are Esther's arguments:

*Esther Dyson  *

*I think it affects our sense of justice, and rightness. And we're
concerned again, that it's like taking -- you don't take a person and sell
them. I mean, I, you know, I don't want to get into really, yeah, it's not
the same as slavery, but it is in that same direction. You take something
with a purpose that's beyond money, and you turn it into something whose
purpose is to make money for the shareholders, and that's a perfectly
legitimate business model. We just don't think they apply to .org, which
was founded as a not for profit, serves not for profits. And we'd like to
make sure that the .org name continues to mean something. When I founded
ICANN, we had the same discussion. Should there be more top level domain
names? And for a long time, we resisted, because we didn't. I mean, now if
you're Coca Cola, you have to register Coca Cola dot info, dot web, dot all
the different countries, dot food, dot healthy, and so those domain names
have been cheapened, or inflated, because you make more money by selling
more domain names even though each one is worth a little less.*

*Esther Dyson  *
*Yeah. So first I want to talk about the issue of prices. And forgive me,
but this is such a familiar story. Nobody's complaining that Facebook
charges its users too much. They're complaining about what Facebook does
with their data. And, you know, whether it's $10 or $20 per domain name,
myname.org <http://myname.org> is really not the point. The point is
exactly what Nora says. Yes, we're going to make this thing much more
profitable. There's a couple of issues here. First of all, PIR right now,
Afilias, I don't know the details, but Afilias provides a very discount
price to PIR for its technical operation of .org,. You're going to find in
fact that the amount of money PIR has to spend would go up, this became a
for profit, because it would no longer be subsidized by the rest of the
Internet. So the question remains, as you already asked, Meghna, what are
they going to do to get a return on their investment? And, believe me, it's
not PIR investing in itself, it's going to be Ethos investing in PIR in
order eventually to sell it, because that's what private equity funds do.
And that's what we're concerned about. We're concerned about not getting
straight answers. Nora's not the only person who worked at ICANN during the
time when the price caps were lifted, who is now involved with Ethos. We
don't know who else is involved. We don't know who the investors are. We
don't know what their mission is. And that's why we're concerned. And
that's why we're not asking, we don't want someone else to buy it, we want
ICANN to do its job, and to keep it as an organization that serves its
members. *


Joly

On Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 8:53 AM Mueller, Milton L <milton at gatech.edu> wrote:

> Wisdom:
>
> You need to understand that Woodcock/PCH is an interested party with a
> conflict of interest; he is currently being paid to do things for PIR and
> would lose that contract if the sale goes through. This scare talk about
> downtime is not independent technical analysis, it is a sales pitch. Take
> it with a grain (or boulder) of salt.
>
> I have read his economic “analysis” in his letter to the board and found
> it borderline comical. He claims (without any evidence) that the functions
> her performs for .ORG are worth $30 million but that he provides the
> service for some much smaller number, around $300,000. So first he claimed
> that PIR would have to dramatically raise prices to replace him, now he is
> complaining that they aren’t spending enough. His numbers are made up.
>
> Let’s realize we are in a propaganda war about .ORG. Esther Dyson, a
> venture capitalist who scorned the noncommercial constituency and opposed
> democratic elections for ICANN board members, is succeeding in positioning
> herself to gullible American media as an advocate of noncommercial
> organizations and proponent of democratic governance of .org.  That kind of
> big lie ought to tip us off that powerful players are positioning
> themselves to grab something.
>
>
>
> Dr. Milton L Mueller
>
> Georgia Institute of Technology
>
> School of Public Policy
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* NCSG-Discuss <NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU> *On Behalf Of *Wisdom
> Donkor
> *Sent:* Wednesday, January 22, 2020 4:30 AM
> *To:* NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> *Subject:* A private equity firm wants to buy ‘.org’ for $1 billion. A
> Berkeley-based cooperative says, ‘not so fast’
>
>
>
> In this article
> <https://www.berkeleyside.com/2020/01/16/a-private-equity-firm-wants-to-buy-org-for-1-billion-a-berkeley-based-cooperative-says-not-so-fast?fbclid=IwAR27YNOQPMVyzX4zlu3FD_WjK9SqnbwhKIQOHZfAGEv9KHrK9A871UzUJIw> on
> the sale of PIR to Ethos Capital, the executive director of the Packet
> Clearing House states (emphasis added):
>
>
>
> *[Ethos Capital] said they’re entertaining bids with an operating cost of
> $330,000. The current operating cost is just over $30 million, so that
> would be a 99% cut in spending. You don’t get 15 years of uninterrupted
> service for $330,000 a year.*
>
>
>
> *It’s really hard to predict future downtime, just like it’s hard to
> predict the effect of earthquakes on buildings. There can always be a
> bigger cyberattack in the future, so being prepared means being responsible
> and spending the money.*
>
>
>
> *But insofar as we were able to estimate, you get about 3.12 days of
> downtime per year. Multiply that times every nonprofit in the world. We’re
> talking about Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross. We’re talking
> about the IATA that does international air traffic control. Do we really
> want international flights grounded for three days a year so [Bain founder
> and U.S. Senator] Mitt Romney can make a few hundred million more? Not a
> reasonable societal tradeoff.*
>
>
>
> *Once you’ve axed 99% of your spending you also need to jack up the
> prices, in a Martin Shkreli-style maximization of profits. Then, how else
> do you make money? Let’s say somebody goes to investigate contraception or
> abortion. Regardless of where they wind up, whether that’s Planned
> Parenthood or some crazed right-wing church website, either way, that’s
> going to be a .org. The feed of everybody who went looking for those things
> is going to be for sale. Ethos has already bought five companies to
> monetize the private information they’d be harvesting if they got .org.*
>
>
>
> I am sharing these extracts for information purposes.
>
>
>
> *WISDOM DONKOR*
>
> President & CEO
>
> Africa Open Data and Internet Research Foundation
>
> P.O. Box CT 2439, Cantonments, Accra | www.aodirf.org  /
> www.afrigeocon.org
>
> Tel: +233 20 812 8851
>
> Skype: wisdom_dk | Facebook: kwasi wisdom |  Twitter: @wisdom_dk
>
> __________________________________________________
>
> Specialization:
>
> E-government Network Infrastructure and E-application, Internet
> Governance,  Open Data policies platforms & Community Development, Cyber
> Security,  Domain Name Systems, Software Engineering, Event Planning &
> Management,
>
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