ICANN listened to public protests – and suspended the sale of the .ORG domain zone, requesting additional information about the deal, including information about the owners of the dubious Ethos Capital firm.

Recall that in November 2019, Ethos Capital Closed Joint-Stock Company, specially created for these purposes, agreed to purchase the non-profit organization The Internet Society (ISOC), including the Public Interest Registry (PIR) operator, which manages the .ORG registry.

The deal was announced on November 13, 2019, and it was planned to close in Q1. 2020 year. Thus, a registry of 10 million domain names. org and financial management decided to give a commercial firm. Most interestingly, five months before this, the ISOC, with the permission of ICANN, lifted any restrictions on the maximum price of .ORG domains, and the leadership of Ethos Capital found former influential ICANN officials.

But ICANN has the right to block the transfer of the .ORG service contract. This is provided for in Section 7.5 of the registry agreement between the Public Interest Registry and ICANN.

On December 9, 2019, ICANN’s official blog posted information on the current status of “the proposed sale of the Public Interest Registry (PIR) to Ethos Capital.”

“According to the agreement on servicing the .ORG zone, the PIR operator must obtain ICANN prior consent before any transaction that leads to a change in control over the registry,” the official statement said. – Typically, such requests are made confidentially to ICANN; we asked PIR for permission to publish the information, but they rejected our request. – In accordance with the .ORG Registry Agreement and our review procedures, ICANN has 30 days to request additional information about the proposed transaction, including information about the party that gains control of the registry, its ultimate parent organization, and whether they are ICANN-approved registry operator criteria (as well as financial resources, operational and technical capabilities). ”

ICANN sent a request to PIR for more information to ensure that it “has a complete understanding of the proposed transaction.” In particular, PIR should provide information on guarantees of continuous operation of the .ORG registry, the nature of the proposed transaction, how the new ownership structure will adhere to the terms of the current agreement with PIR and how they intend to act in accordance with their promises to serve the .ORG community with more than 10 million domain names names.

ICANN will carefully evaluate the responses, and then ICANN will have 30 additional days to give or not to agree to the request.

“In order to maintain confidence in the .ORG community, we urge PIR, ISOC and Ethos Capital to act openly and transparently throughout this process. Today we sent a letter to both ISOC and PIR, in which we ask them to be clear and open in all their messages. We have expressed our readiness to publish the request and related materials related to ICANN review, including the approval request, the request for additional information, and the PIR responses. ICANN takes its responsibility for evaluating this proposed transaction very seriously. We will carefully and thoroughly evaluate the proposed acquisition to ensure that the .ORG registry remains safe, reliable and stable, ”the official statement said.

Cronyism and corruption?

The industry publication describes a scheme by which they try to bring the .ORG domain zone into private ownership.

Ethos Capital itself was created immediately before the transaction. The domain name EthosCapital.com was registered at the end of October 2019.

The founder and CEO of Ethos Capital is Eric Brooks, who until recently worked at the investment company Abry Partners. A year ago, Abry Partners acquired Donuts, the domain zone operator for .guru, .software and .life, and another 240 other TLDs. Akram Atallah, former president of ICANN's global domain division, was invited by Donuts's Executive Director, and Donuts co-founder served as Executive Director of Public Interest Registry. Ethos Capital also has former ICANN senior vice president Jon Nevett, and former ICANN chief executive Fadi Chehad? Is an adviser to Abry Partners, Domain Name Wire writes.

Everything looks like a pre-planned transaction for the withdrawal of assets from ICANN specifically for their monetization

According to critics, ISOC deliberately prepared for the sale, and ICANN was misled. The community’s concerns were expressed by the Internet Commerce Association public group in an open letter (pdf) to ICANN: “If you were made to believe that removing the price restrictions on .ORG domains was a reasonable approach, because the registry will remain in the hands of a non-profit foundation, you were clearly misled, – said in a letter. “If your miscalculation of entering into an indefinite agreement without any price restrictions was based on the fact that the registry remains in the hands of an organization serving the public interest, then the planned sale of the registry to a commercial firm should force you to reconsider your approach.”

“Where is the ICANN board located when it comes to protecting the interests of non-profit organizations that have registered domains?” Is the end of an open letter from the Internet Commerce Association community group.

ICANN seems to have listened to the voice of the public and drew attention to a suspicious transaction.

The non-profit organization ICANN was established in 1998. Its mission is to coordinate and manage the DNS, and maintain global connectivity. ICANN’s model is based on the principle of “multi-stakeholderism,” that is, representatives of business, academia and civil society participate in it, in addition to states: “ICANN assumes that no country in itself, no organization and no one can assign or to requisition what we do, ”says Goran Marby, CEO and Head of ICANN, to explain the fundamental principles. ICANN is also responsible for the accreditation of domain name registrars in international domain zones (.COM, .NET and others).