Mozilla Floats Questions for ICANN on Ethos/PIR-ISOC; Buyer Fears 'Slippery Slope'
When ICANN's board meets in coming days, Mozilla wants directors to scrutinize the Internet Society's sale of the Public Interest Registry to Ethos Capital. Board members should devise criteria Friday, said a Mozilla blog post Thursday. It said a stewardship…
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charter, B corporation registration with public charter, and public feedback on the first two criteria "should be in place before ICANN considers approving the sale." Mozilla sought a charter giving a PIR stewardship council of .org stakeholders "broad scope, meaningful independence, and practical authority to ensure PIR continues to serve the public benefit." It would guarantee Ethos and PIR "keep their promises regarding price increases, and steer any additional revenue from higher prices back into the dot org ecosystem." PIR won't change because of its "indirect transfer of ownership," an Ethos spokesperson emailed. "ICANN has a clear and specific mandate" here, she added. "ICANN’s exclusive responsibility in reviewing any transfer of control is to ensure that it does not adversely impact the stability, reliability, or security of the registry." PIR post-deal will meet those criteria, she said. "Should ICANN base its decision about this transaction on opinions that have been circulating in public discussion that are unrelated to these criteria, it would set a dangerous precedent. It would put ICANN in the business of subjectively deciding who should own registries based on issues other than the stability, reliability and security of the registry. This becomes a very gray area." It would "create a slippery slope for ICANN, cause significant uncertainty for any company in the future seeking to purchase or sell a domain name registry, create an uncertain and unpredictable business environment for registries and raise serious doubts about whether ICANN is expanding its role far beyond its limited mandate. The enforceability and value of the ICANN contract itself would be called into question." ICANN didn't comment now. It last week extended the time to review PIR's purchase to next month (see 2001210034). ISOC and PIR noted the deal won't change the nonprofit website registrar that's being transferred nor .org. "It’s important all sides of this debate are heard, including ours," emailed a spokesperson on behalf of ISOC and PIR. "PIR will retain the same management team that is in place today, and will continue to operate the .ORG registry in the same way that it has successfully operated the registry for the past 16 years."