[governance] Public Interest Registry sale by ISOC - .org management sold for profit

[Bill Woodcock]

> On Nov 21, 2019, at 7:21 AM, Bill Woodcock <woody at pch.net> wrote:
> “Potentially worth billions.”  Everybody I know assumes the deal was somewhere in the $300M-$500M range, with some sort of earn-out or claw-back to mitigate the risk of recompete.

Hm.  Ok, I’m digging further into this now, reading the last renewal with ICANN, which was, as the article points out, for ten years:

https://www.icann.org/sites/default/files/tlds/org/org-agmt-html-30jun19-en.htm

Relevant portions:

4.1  Term.  The term of this Agreement will be ten (10) years from the Effective Date (as such term may be extended pursuant to Section 4.2, the “Term”).
4.2  Renewal.  This Agreement will be renewed for successive periods of ten (10) years upon the expiration of the initial Term
4.3(g)  ICANN may, upon thirty (30) calendar days’ notice to Registry Operator, terminate this Agreement as specified in Section 7.5.
7.5  Change of Control; Assignment and Subcontracting.  Except as set forth in this Section 7.5, neither party may assign any of its rights and obligations under this Agreement without the prior written approval of the other party, which approval will not be unreasonably withheld.
7.5(b)  Within thirty (30) calendar days of either such notification pursuant to Section 7.5(a), ICANN may request additional information from Registry Operator … in which case Registry Operator must supply the requested information within fifteen (15) calendar days.
7.5(c) Registry Operator agrees that ICANN’s consent to any assignment, change of control or Material Subcontracting Arrangement will also be subject to background checks on any proposed Contracting Party (and such Contracting Party’s Affiliates).
7.5(d) If ICANN fails to expressly provide or withhold its consent within thirty (30) calendar days, ICANN shall be deemed to have consented to such transaction.

So, it appears that the danger of a recompete triggered by ICANN is actually fairly low, so doesn’t need to be hedged too directly. i.e. could just be insured for, rather than built into the transaction.

Excuse the ignorant question, but can anyone point me at the document in which the DoC gives up their rights/responsibilities over .org competition?  I’m curious whether that’s also a threat.

Anyway, I’m guessing “billions” plural is still hyperbole, but based on this, the ISOC endowment might well wind up being, uh, well-endowed.  Which would be an excellent thing for the Internet.

                                -Bill

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