• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Domain Industry & Internet News

Domain Industry & Internet News

Domain Name Industry News

  • Home
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submit News
  • Comment Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Advertise Hosting & Domain Industry Jobs
You are here: Home / pir / Nonprofits Mobilise Against PIR Sale

Nonprofits Mobilise Against PIR Sale

November 23, 2019 by Michele Neylon

27 nonprofit organisations have come together to put pressure on ISOC and stop the sale of PIR, the operator of the .org domain. They’re also asking ISOC to find an alternative nonprofit to take over the role:

Decisions affecting .ORG must be made with the consultation of the NGO community, overseen by a trusted community leader. If the Internet Society (ISOC) can no longer be that leader, it should work with the NGO community and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to find an appropriate replacement.

In a letter sent yesterday the nonprofits outline three key points that they feel the sale of PIR to a private equity firm puts at risk:

  • Pricing. The new .org contract that was signed recently gives PIR the ability to raise the price of .org domains.
  • Rights protection mechanisms.
  • Domain suspensions

Here’s the letter (PDF) which is signed by:

  • American Alliance of Museums
  • American Society of Association Executives
  • Aspiration
  • Association of Junior Leagues International, Inc.
  • Creative Commons
  • Crisis Text Line
  • Demand Progress Education Fund
  • DoSomething.org
  • Electronic Frontier Foundation
  • European Climate Foundation
  • Free Software Foundation
  • Girl Scouts of the USA
  • Independent Sector
  • Internet Archive
  • Meals on Wheels America
  • National Council of Nonprofits
  • National Human Services Assembly
  • NTEN
  • Palante Technology Cooperative
  • Public Knowledge
  • R Street Institute
  • TechSoup
  • VolunteerMatch
  • Volunteers of America
  • Wikimedia Foundation
  • YMCA of the USA
  • YWCA USA

They’ve also launched a site asking other people and organisations to sign on to the letter and email the CEOs of ISOC, PIR and ICANN as well as the Chairman of the ICANN Board. According to the site the campaign has already generated nearly 5 thousand emails to date.

One of the arguments that they’re emphasising is the statements made at the time of the transfer of .org to PIR and ISOC back in 2002. Essentially it can argued that one of the reasons why ISOC (and PIR) was given the .org contract back in 2002 was due to the commitment to the nonprofit sector and its general ethos.

I know from multiple conversations I’ve had since the announcement of the sale that it’s a topic that is definitely attracting a lot of attention, though opinions are divided.

Filed Under: pir Tagged With: icann, ISOC, pir

About Michele Neylon

Michele is founder and managing director of Irish domain registrar and hosting company Blacknight. Michele has been deeply involved in domain and internet policy discussions for more than a decade.
He also co-hosts the Technology.ie podcast.

Primary Sidebar

Recent Articles

ICANN’s Cancún Meeting Was Almost Normal

Middle East DNS Forum to be Held in Istanbul

Gandi Merges with TWS to Form “Your.Online”

Anguilla Offline due to Fibre Issue

IGF 2023 to be Held in Kyoto, Japan

Recent Comments

  • ICANN Gets First Female CEO on Centralnic Head Honcho Announces Immediate Retirement
  • Kieren McCarthy Elected to Nominet Board on Nominet Election Candidates 2022 Finally Announced
  • Michele Neylon on Nominet Taking RDAP Out of Beta
  • Gavin Brown on Nominet Taking RDAP Out of Beta
  • ICANN Heading to Hamburg (ICANN78) and Los Angeles (GDD) Plus Training For African Registries - Goldstein Report on ICANN Announces GDD Summit Dates & Location

Categories

Blogroll

  • Alex Bligh
  • Circle ID
  • Domain Incite
  • Domain Name News
  • Domain Name Wire
  • Jason Thompson

Blogs

  • Domain Gang
  • Stéphane Bortzmeyer

Archives

Recent Comments

  • ICANN Gets First Female CEO on Centralnic Head Honcho Announces Immediate Retirement
  • Kieren McCarthy Elected to Nominet Board on Nominet Election Candidates 2022 Finally Announced
  • Michele Neylon on Nominet Taking RDAP Out of Beta
  • Gavin Brown on Nominet Taking RDAP Out of Beta
  • ICANN Heading to Hamburg (ICANN78) and Los Angeles (GDD) Plus Training For African Registries - Goldstein Report on ICANN Announces GDD Summit Dates & Location

Categories

Blogroll

  • Alex Bligh
  • Circle ID
  • Domain Incite
  • Domain Name News
  • Domain Name Wire
  • Jason Thompson
  • Nigel Roberts

Blogs

  • Domain Gang
  • Stéphane Bortzmeyer

Copyright © 2023 InternetNews.me