New Ethos Commitments for .Org Get Mixed Reaction
Sale of the Public Interest Registry should be halted until ICANN can vet all financial details, the Electronic Frontier Foundation blogged Friday, responding to new accountability commitments by the buyer, Ethos Capital, about price caps, censorship safeguards and privacy protections…
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for. org domain names (see 2002210017). EFF urged the FTC to review the buyout. Limiting price increases and establishing a "stewardship council" doesn't lessen the risk for nonprofits because the handpicked body "will have no real authority or practical ability to override the wishes of PIR's new equity owners," EFF Senior Staff Attorney Mitch Stoltz emailed us. The sale risks bankrupting PIR, he said. The Internet Governance Project said Ethos' public interest commitment is good news, because it's the agreement between ICANN and the registry "that will protect .ORG registrants, not promises, and not 'stopping the sale.'" The proposal "falls short" of IGP recommendations because composition of the stewardship council has no slots for independent noncommercial bodies and could lead to an "Ethos-selected group of puppets" and because potential steep price increases aren't accompanied by longer domain name registration terms.