The Internet Society and Public Interest Registry (PIR) announced the sale of the org. registry to an investment firm Ethos Capital at 2019 November. After this decision shocked the internet industry, on 23 December, three U.S. Senators and a U.S. Representative have sent a letter to Ethos Capital, Internet Society, and Public Interest Registry about the decision to sell .org gTLD to Ethos.
Concerns about the domain price increase
Ethos Capital announced that the company will further strengthen the Public Interest Commitment (PIC). The company announced two PICs before on the 16th of March and the 21st of January. The company has been blocked from buying the .org registry. Because there were concerns about making non-profit organizations to pay more to keep their domain names up.
At the beginning of this April, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra also sent a letter to ICANN warning he could take action to stop the sale, writing,
“This office will continue to evaluate this matter and will take whatever action necessary to protect Californians and the nonprofit community.”
According to ICANN’s announcement last week, the entire board stands by this decision. After thorough due diligence and robust discussion, they concluded that this is the right decision to take. On the other hand, Ethos Capital said about this decision:
“Today’s action opens the door for ICANN to unilaterally reject future transfer requests based on agenda-driven pressure by outside parties. This decision will suffocate innovation and deter future investment in the domain industry.”
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