Sale of Public Interest Registry and .ORG domain called off

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nba.30800
• Published date: 01 July 2020
• Date: 01 July 2020

JULY 2020 NONPROFIT BUSINESS ADVISOR

7

© 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC • All rights reserved

DOI: 10.1002/nba

Industry News

Sale of Public Interest Registry

and .ORG domain called off

Just days before the deal was to be nalized, the

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Num-

bers announced it had rejected the proposed sale of

the Public Interest Registry to Ethos Capital, a private

equity rm. The sale, which would have cost Ethos

Capital $1.135 billion, was beset by controversy since it

was announced in November 2019 because of concerns

expressed by the nonprot community. Most notably,

nonprots worried that private-sector control of the

.ORG top-level domain, which PIR has owned since

2003, would have led to higher prices, censorship and

other burdens for the philanthropic community—more

than 10.5 million domain names are registered as .orgs.

Those concerns led Ethos Capital to agree to a

number of concessions earlier this year, chief among

them being the following legally binding contractual

provisions:

• Affordability of .ORG Domain Names: Fees

charged to registrars for initial or renewal registration

of a .ORG domain name will not increase by more

than 10% per year on average for eight years from

the start of the current Registry Agreement, under

a precise formula that does not permit frontloading

of those price increases.

• .ORG Stewardship Council: The .ORG Steward-

ship Council (the “Council”) will have authority to

provide independent advice on and a binding right to

veto modications proposed by PIR to PIR’s policies

regarding (1) censorship and freedom of expression

and (2) use of .ORG registrant and user data. The

Council will have specic authority to veto any pro-

posals or modications that would limit the Council’s

oversight in these areas.

However, the ICANN, which is party to a registry

agreement that allows PIR to operate the .ORG do-

main, rejected the overall sale agreement, even with

the commitments to protect the pricing and steward-

ship of the .ORG domain.

In announcing its rejection of the sale, the ICANN

board noted the following concerns:

• A change from the fundamental public interest

nature of PIR to an entity that is bound to serve the

interests of its corporate stakeholders, and which

has no meaningful plan to protect or serve the .ORG

community.

• ICANN would have to contract with a wholly

different form of entity, instead of maintaining its

contract with the mission-based, not-for-prot that

has responsibly operated the .ORG registry for nearly

20 years, with the protections for its own community

embedded in its mission and status as a not-for-prot

entity.

• The $360 million debt instrument that would

have partially nanced the sale would force the PIR

to service that debt and provide returns to its share-

holders, which raised further questions about how

the .ORG registrants would be protected or would

benet from the sale.

• The transaction relies on the ICANN as a

Republic Services launches new community support initiative

The waste disposal services company Republic

Services has launched a new initiative to support

its employees, customers and communities across

the United States as they weather the COVID-19

crisis. The company has pledged $20 million to

the Committed to Service initiative, which will

include multiple components, including a weekly

meal for all front-line employees, weekly dinner

for front-line employees and their families and

biweekly $100 gift cards to all front-line employ-

ees (or $400 per employee in total).

All meals will be purchased from local, small

businesses to help support the company’s custom-

ers and the communities it serves. Additionally,

Republic Services will donate $3 million to the

Republic Services Charitable Foundation to fund

its long-term nonprofit partners that operate

locally and serve local communities and small

businesses.

For more information, including a listing of the

communities where the company and foundation

will be awarding grants and funding under this new

initiative, visit https://www.republicservices.com/

communities. ■

(See SALE on page 8)