[Governance] Acquisition of Afilias by Donuts

[parminder]

On 20/11/20 4:39 PM, Ayden Férdeline wrote:
> Thanks Parminder,
>
> On the revolving door point -


you may want to see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)#:~:text=In%20politics%2C%20the%20%22revolving%20door,and%20regulation%2C%20on%20the%20other.


> I have also noticed that many former ICANN execs are now working at
> companies in the domain name space, and others have pointed this out
> as well. But I don't see why there would be anything wrong with that
> unless, for example, they made decisions /prior/ to leaving ICANN
> /purely/ for the benefit of their post-ICANN careers and against the
> best interests of the ICANN community. If you (or anyone else) are
> able to provide verifiable evidence of such, I think there would be
> considerable media interest in such a story...
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Ayden Férdeline
>
>
> ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> On Friday, November 20th, 2020 at 05:32, parminder via Governance
> <governance at lists.igcaucus.org> wrote:
>>
>> I understand all that this is being directed by a murky mafia behind
>> the scene, of which we got some sightings during the .org saga. This
>> mafia both consists of ex-CANNers and is in cahoots with existing
>> people in ICANN... This is why revolving doors is such a bad word in
>> policy and governance circles.... But wasnt the multistakeholderism
>> version practised by ICANN always a formalisation and white-washing
>> of revolving doors... parminder
>>
>> On 20/11/20 4:01 AM, Ayden Férdeline via Governance wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> Just flagging this press release that says Afilias has been acquired
>>> by Donuts:
>>>
>>> https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/donuts-inc-to-acquire-afilias-inc-301177508.html
>>>
>>> This means that Donuts now owns over 450 generic top-level domains
>>> (out of a total of 1,200). The (continued) consolidation in the
>>> domain name industry is something that civil society might want to
>>> track. I am not sure if this sale is problematic from a competition
>>> perspective (though that is my gut reaction), but it is significant
>>> nonetheless.
>>>
>>> Donuts is owned by private equity firm Abry Partners, connected to
>>> former ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade.
>>>
>>> Afilias, which Donuts is now acquiring, is paid roughly $20 million
>>> a year by the Public Interest Registry to offer backend services.
>>> Late last year another Fadi Chehade-connected entity, Ethos Capital,
>>> attempted to acquire the Public Interest Registry.
>>>
>>> Best wishes,
>>>
>>> Ayden Férdeline
>>>
>
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