[governance] Fwd: [Internet Policy] on the proposed transfer of PRI

[parminder]

I forwarded these questions about .org sale to ISOC CEO on the ISOC
Internet policy elist... thought this group may also be interested..
parminder 


-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	Re: [Internet Policy] on the proposed transfer of PRI
Date: 	Sat, 18 Jan 2020 11:36:45 +0530
From: 	parminder via InternetPolicy <internetpolicy at elists.isoc.org>
Reply-To: 	parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>
To: 	internetpolicy at elists.isoc.org



Hi Andrew

In case the direct questions about the .org sale were not too evident in
my below email, and you prefer to engage with clear direct questions,
I'd try and make them clear:

ICANN delegated .org to ISOC following certain criteria
<https://archive.icann.org/en/tlds/org/criteria.htm>, which it obviously
felt necessary for an .org operator to qualify. In selling .org to
Ethos, did ISOC assess Ethos on those criteria?

If your response is yes, can you please describe some evidence of it.

If your response is no, you did not consider it necessary to employ
ICANN's original criteria for evaluating a potential new operator of
.org, then I have some other questions for you.

Why so? Do you think that time and conditions has changed and these
criteria are no longer relevant?  If so, what is your basis for such a
supposition -- how have the time and conditions changed to make those
original criteria irrelevant?

Or did you decide that, since ICANN still has to clear the transfer, it
is ICANN's and not your job to apply these criteria?

If this was why you did not apply those criteria, dont you think that --
being a public interest organisation, accountable to almost the same or
similar constituency as ICANN is, and also closely aligned to ICANN in
many ways (I* organisations and all) -- you should have applied these
public interest criteria on the basis of which ICANN originally
allocated .org to ISOC? In not doing so, did you not betray the trust
and interests of your constituencies, and of ICANN, that was so good as
to allocate .org to ISOC and save ISOC and ISOC's finances in dire times?

Many consider, including what I read from Vint Cerf's article, that
ICANN's delegation of .org to ISOC was indeed a kind of grant to help
ISOC. If so, does not the implied trust and fiduciary responsibility
make it even more incumbent upon ISOC to consider ICANN's original
criteria in taking a decision in divesting .org to a new owner?

Do you have any reason to think that ICANN no longer stands by those
original criteria? if you so think, can you help us understand the basis
of that... If you have no reason to think that ICANN still does not
stand by those original criteria, and you having not considered those
criteria in selling .org, can ISOC not legitimately be accused of
recklessness and making a mess of the whole thing when it is very likely
that ICANN would still apply those criteria and cancel the deal?

BTW, whether ISOC considered the criteria or not, Andrew, do you really
think Ethos would have qualified those criteria? I did especially point
in my below emails to criteria 6, 5 and 4. I for one can see no way
Ethos can meet them. The sale is wrong just on that basis.

Somewhat separately:

I do note that you say in a recent email that " the total price received
by ISOC was not in fact the only thing we were concerned about" .. what
other things you were concerned about, meaning what other criteria you
employed?  I dont see why your own criteria should be classified, as
ICANN's original ones were not.

Thanks, parminder

On 16/01/20 11:20 AM, parminder via InternetPolicy wrote:
>
>
> What I understand Vint to say is:
>
> .org has earlier been managed quite well by for-profits, and then it
> was delegated to ISOC, whereby although it provided ISOC a revenue
> stream, due to ISOC's non-profit status, .org was actually constrained
> to function as it best could and should have.... This defect gets
> corrected by the sale of .org  even as it even better fulfils the
> requirement of sustained revenue for ISOC.... Two birds killed by one
> stone, what could be better...
>
> So, either it was ICANN's explicit purpose to provide ISOC with a
> grant through delegation of .org, or ICANN simply made a mistake in
> delegating .org to ISOC when as Vint thinks nonprofit ownership is not
> the best for .org's own functioning as a registry (if we remove the
> consideration of revenue stream for ISOC).
>
> I actually do think that ICANN made a grant to ISOC by delegating .org
> to it, but if we are just to go by the official papers, this was no
> part of the consideration, see here the criteria for assessing
> proposal to manage .org 
> <https://archive.icann.org/en/tlds/org/criteria.htm>
>
> Interestingly as one sees the criteria, one finds some very
> significant ones related to non commercial or NGO constituency --
> like, the need for demonstrated support among non- commercial
> registrants (criterion  6),  participatory mechanism involving non
> commercial users in policy making (criterion  5), and strong
> differentiation of the registry towards non commercial users
> (criterion  44)...
>
> My question in this regard is:
>
> A governance body acting on behalf of the Internet community -- ie
> ICANN -- gives a resource to ISOC as a favour so that it can make some
> money but also manage the resource well for the community. Is it ok
> for ISOC to unilaterally divest that resource without considering
> whether the party it is divesting the resource in favour of meets the
> initial criteria that ICANN had for a manager of that resource?
>
> Is it not ISOC's responsibility to at least assert that any new party
> being put in charge of that resource is vetted for ICANN's initial
> criteria to allocate that resource?
>
> My question to Vint, if he might, but certainly to Andrew and ISOC,
> is, did they vet Ethos on the basis of the criteria that ICANN
> initially employed in delegating .org -- and actually did a big favour
> to give it to ISOC because it also meant a big grant to it?
>
> Can they show us any proof of such vetting?
>
> I certainly cannot see how Ethos, very recently set up for the purpose
> of acquiring .org,  , for instance, meets the criteria 6 of a
> demonstrated support among non commercial users.... Or even 5 or 4.
>
> In the circumstances, is it not a grave breach of trust and
> accountability for ISOC to sell off .org which was handed to it
> following some explicit criteria, apart from it also being a grant,
> without ascertaining whethert the new .org manager met those criteria
> which ICANN and presumably the Internet community wanted to see in any
> .org manager?
>
> thanks for your engagement, and hopefully expected response.
>
> For ICANN, my humble question is: Is there any reason not to follow
> once again for .org sale the initial criteria they had for delegation
> of .org, and testing Ethos against them?  But if ICANN thinks
> circumstances have now changed, would they be as good as to inform the
> community how have they changed?
>
>
> parminder
>
>
> On 15/01/20 2:25 AM, vinton cerf via InternetPolicy wrote:
>>
>> *
>> A STRONGER FUTURE FOR .ORG AND THE INTERNET*
>>
>>  
>>
>> By VINTON G. CERF
>>
>>  
>>
>> Over the past several weeks, I have watched with disappointment the
>> controversy surrounding Ethos Capital’s proposed acquisition of the
>> Public Interest Registry – which runs the .org domain – from the
>> Internet Society. I am in favor of this acquisition and would like to
>> explain why.
>>
>>  
>>
>> First, it is worth remembering that .org was managed by several
>> for-profit companies in the past: Network Solutions, SAIC and
>> VeriSign. As nearly as I can tell, these operations were beneficial
>> and, at least, not harmful, to the .org brand.
>>
>>  
>>
>> Second, when the operation of .org was transferred to the Internet
>> Society, it created the non-profit called Public Interest Registry,
>> or PIR. PIR’s primary objectives were, first, to operate .org and,
>> second, to provide significant support for the Internet Society by
>> essentially allocating any surplus from the operation of PIR to fund
>> the Internet Society’s work in promoting a more accessible and secure
>> Internet. This amounted to about $50 million a year, which was hugely
>> helpful to the Internet Society but limited PIR’s ability to invest
>> in improvements to the operation of .org or even the creation of new
>> products and services for the non-profit community.
>>
>>  
>>
>> The consequence of PIR’s non-profit operation and its obligations to
>> the Internet Society was that it limited PIR’s ability to invest in
>> its own operation. Now, let’s consider the situation after the
>> proposed transaction. First, ISOC will receive an endowment of over
>> $1 billion, which it will need to manage. That’s a non-trivial task,
>> but also one that is independent of the ups and downs of the domain
>> name business. Second, PIR becomes a for-profit operation and its
>> investors can establish a policy of investing profits back into the
>> company in addition to distributing earnings to shareholders. Both
>> organizations end up with new incentives for their operation that are
>> beneficial compared to their earlier relationship of interdependence.
>>
>>  
>>
>> Third, nothing prevents Ethos from adopting – and in fact it has
>> every incentive to adopt – community-friendly policies for the
>> operation of PIR. Indeed, it is wise for Ethos to take steps to
>> reassure the .org customer base, especially about costs. Even though
>> the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has
>> relieved registry operators from constraints on price increases,
>> Ethos has voluntarily agreed to policies based on the earlier
>> guidelines established by ICANN, and has said that any increase would
>> not be more than 10% per year on average. Moreover, as a for-profit
>> company, PIR has a clear rationale for not driving away its customer
>> base by any excessive raising of prices. Given current .org pricing,
>> a 10% increase in price would be less than $1. Even if an
>> organization had registered a dozen .org domain names, it is hard to
>> believe that such an increase would be viewed as unsustainable for
>> most non-profits. Of course, companies that hold domain names in the
>> tens of thousands for speculative purposes might find such increases
>> more troubling, but I don’t have much sympathy for that business
>> model in the context of the organizations the .org brand is intended
>> to serve.
>>
>>  
>>
>> Fourth, it is worth pointing out that the Internet Society did not
>> seek this transaction, but its Board of Trustees responded with due
>> diligence and with the help of highly qualified financial advisors to
>> conclude that this was a transaction in its interest, and that it
>> would further the Internet Society’s fundamental purposes regarding
>> the Internet and its beneficial operation.
>>
>>  
>>
>> From the perspective of PIR’s millions of customers, what is
>> important is what Ethos actually chooses to do regarding the
>> operation of .org. In addition to its commitment to limit price
>> increases, Ethos has proposed to create a Stewardship Council to
>> advise the Board on key decisions that could affect .org users or the
>> Internet ecosystem. It is my understanding that Ethos intends for the
>> Stewardship Council to have considerable authority. The Council, for
>> example, will take on the role of ratifying strong rules protecting
>> freedom of expression and safeguarding against censorship.
>>
>>  
>>
>> Ethos is also proposing to set up a Community Enablement Fund for the
>> purpose of underwriting efforts beneficial to the .org community,
>> which will be funded at a level that is substantially more than PIR
>> can invest today. The Stewardship Council will manage the process of
>> evaluating proposals to be supported.
>>
>>  
>>
>> All of these commitments, as well as the fundamental logic of the
>> proposed transaction, convince me that this is the right path forward
>> for the Internet Society, for PIR, for Ethos and for the .org community.
>>
>>  
>>
>> */Vinton Cerf/*/ is Google’s chief Internet evangelist. /
>>
>> / /
>>
>> _                               _
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> -
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>
> _______________________________________________
> To manage your Internet Society subscriptions
> or unsubscribe, log into the Member Portal at
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> and go to the Interests tab within your profile.
> -
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