[governance] POLL ON .ORG LETTER: You can participate now

[Michael Palage]

Hello Bill,

A little legal clarification.  The original Registry Contract with NSI/VeriSign (1999) bundled all three TLDs together. When VRSN was given a presumptive renewal in connection with .COM, .NET and .ORG were split off into separate registry agreements. VRSN was not able to bid on .ORG, but it was able to bid on and then win the .NET RFP which is now a presumptive renewal contract.  

-----Original Message-----
From: governance-request at lists.riseup.net <governance-request at lists.riseup.net> On Behalf Of Bill Woodcock
Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2019 7:58 PM
To: Sylvain BAYA <abscoco at gmail.com>
Cc: governance <governance at lists.riseup.net>
Subject: Re: [governance] POLL ON .ORG LETTER: You can participate now



> On Dec 10, 2019, at 4:49 PM, Sylvain BAYA <abscoco at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 1) Some people would be okay with a sale to Ethos specifically, if Ethos were to make a compromise or promises of some sort.
>> 
>> 2) Some people are ok with a sale to a private entity in principle, but not to Ethos because of the specific insider dealings that led to that deal.
>> 
>> 3) Some people are ok with a transfer to a not-for-profit entity, provided it operated .ORG in its originally intended spirit.
>> 
>> 4) Some people presumably want ISOC to continue in its current role of .ORG beneficiary.
> 
> 5) Some people would not be ok with the sale of the PIR

I think (4) and (5) are maybe similar?  By (5) do you mean that ISOC continues operating .ORG via PIR?

> 6) Some people would not be ok with the stewardship of the .ORG/PIR by any non-profit Org

Do you mean that some people would _only_ be happy with for-profit control of .ORG?  Or is that double-negative unintentional?

> ...in (5) i consider that the PIR was a grant (with a clear goal) to InternetSociety.ORG,

Mmmm, not exactly.  PIR was created by ISOC as a holding company to receive the _temporary_ delegation of the .ORG domain.  That was on a three-year renewable delegation.  There was never a grant of anything to anyone.

> by VeriSign ; under the regulatory recommendations of ICANN

Verisign didn’t have a choice in the matter, really…  Their actions were dictated to them by ICANN.  In exchange for giving up .ORG, they retained presumptive control of .COM and .NET for a while longer.  .ORG was the smallest of the three, so it was a reasonable sacrifice from their point of view.  ICANN (the IANA, really) performed the redelegation.  So it was an action by ICANN, not a recommendation; and there was not an action by Verisign, in the sense that none of this originated with them or was performed by them.

These may be small differences, and I’m not saying all this to be argumentative, just to try to make sure that I’ve been as good as I can be about putting information before people clearly.  While I was there, I was not central to that part of the process, and my memory is not perfect, so if anyone has a better recollection, please jump in.

> ; then should not be sold… The (6) is capturing the fact that Bill mentioned first here : "By and For non-commercial"

So are you saying that you believe that .ORG should not be sold?  Do you believe that ISOC should continue to hold it, via PIR?

                                -Bill