Ars Technica published a piece today on the pending .org sale. In another attempt to get PIR to release documents, Ars Technica reported that they contacted PIR today and they claimed they cannot release documents due to confidentiality agreements.
From the article:
CANN says it wants to make the transaction-review process more transparent. But ICANN apparently needs PIR’s permission to publish the request for information and PIR’s responses, and so far PIR has refused a request to make documents public. In last week’s letter to PIR and the Internet Society, ICANN General Counsel and Secretary John Jeffrey urged PIR to make the information public:
We contacted PIR today and the organization said it isn’t able to comply with the request to make documents public because of confidentiality agreements. PIR told Ars:
PIR is committed to being transparent with ICANN and the Internet community, and PIR is working to answer ICANN’s questions and address why this acquisition will be good for the .org community. But like any company in the middle of an acquisition, and consistent with other changes of control that have been reviewed by ICANN, we are limited in what we can release publicly due to confidential[it]y agreements with other parties and proprietary information involving the transaction.
Over 40 comments on the article and one that rang true came from Drizzt321
WTF does “investing in .org” mean?! Why does there _need_ to be an investment? It’s already built-out, in the public knowledge, well supported everywhere, lots of registrars, etc. Just gotta keep the lights on, and I’d actually expected costs to maintain existing functionality to go down as bandwidth and hardware costs overall have gone down.
Alright. Who’s getting what kickbacks?
>But like any company in the middle of an acquisition, and consistent with
>other changes of control that have been reviewed by ICANN
https://www.iana.org/reports/2002/org-report-09dec02.html
“Eleven proposals were received by the 18 June 2002 deadline in response to the request for proposals. Each of these proposals was posted on the ICANN web site, and public comments were invited.3 A special ICANN Public Forum was held on the evening of 26 June 2002 in conjunction with ICANN’s meeting in Bucharest, Romania, where each bidder made a presentation to the ICANN Board and community on its proposal, and a dialogue was held with members of the community, the Board, and the bidders.4”
“On 19 August 2002, a draft evaluation report, which detailed and combined the analyses of each of the evaluation teams, was posted on ICANN’s web site. This draft report recommended the following three proposals, in order of preference: (1) PIR (a not-for-profit organization proposed to be formed by the Internet Society, (2) NeuStar, Inc. (a for-profit company), and (3) Global Name Registry (a for-profit company). Public and applicant comments were invited on the draft evaluation report, and many were received.5 These comments pointed out several areas in which the evaluation could be enhanced; these comments were addressed and a final evaluation report was issued on 23 September 2002. The final evaluation report included an overall “staff evaluation report” and supporting reports prepared by Gartner, Inc., the Non-Commercial Domain Name Holders Constituency team, and the ICANN General Counsel. Although the final evaluation report reflected revisions to several aspects of the evaluation based on the comments received, the recommended preferences for selection of (1) PIR, (2) NeuStar, and (3) Global Name Registry were reaffirmed by the analysis.”
“The overall purpose of changing operators of the .org registry is to enhance diversity of providers in the provision of registry services. This purpose, however, must be accomplished in a way that preserves the security and stability of the domain-name system. It should also be accomplished in a way so that .org is operated in a manner that reflects the particular needs of present .org registrants and the other entities within the NON-COMMERCIAL SECTOR FOR WHICH THE .ORG TOP-LEVEL DOMAIN WAS ESTABLISHED.”
“This emphasis on stability was reflected throughout the evaluation process and the Board’s selection. After a twenty-five day transition period, PIR will provide registration services through an outsourcing arrangement with Afilias, which as the registry operator for .info has experience in serving as registry operator for over 1,000,000 second-level domains. The technical evaluation teams both evaluated the Internet Society/PIR proposal as being within the top tier in terms of stability and other technical factors.”
“WTF does “investing in .org” mean?!”
This is same type of stuff that many registries use to try and justify price increases.
I’m curious about what it means also because the costs of running a registry are pretty minimal, hence the very large margins.
Right, no transparency. Everyone thinks they’re a domainer. Oh the irony of what .org represents, the PUBLIC INTEREST registry…NOT. We know this is a scam by now. There should be NOTHING confidential with ICANN and their (OUR) asset selling. What a farce, they’re busted…too much attention now. Won’t feel good until we get names and see them in JAIL, however.
The names are coming