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ICANN -- .ORG

ABOUT ICANN

top level domains -- .ORG

.edu, .org, .com, .net, .us, .kids, .TRAVEL

1/12/2020 Inside the Billion-Dollar Battle Over .Org
ISOC, PIR, and Ethos respond to Wyden, Blumenthal, Warren and Eshoo Questions on Sale of .ORG
A private equity firm wants to buy the internet domain used by nonprofits. A group of online pioneers [Esther Dyson] says it is not the place to maximize profits.

Jan. 7, 2020, 4:17 p.m. ET Two months ago, Ethos Capital, a private equity firm, announced that it planned to buy the rights to a tract of internet real estate for more than $1 billion.

2006 UltraDNS is the authoritative DNS provider for all Web sites ending in ".org" and ".uk," UltraDNS was acquired by Neustar, which in turn is responsible for handling all ".biz" domain registrations, and for overseeing the nation's authoritative directory of telephone numbers.

What will Happen with the .XXX Domain Name?

ICANN Cut Secret Domain Deal
Tuesday April 5, 2005 by Edward W. Felten
According to Michael Froomkin at ICANNWatch, evidence has come to light that ICANN secretly cut a deal with IATA, an airline industry association, to create a new “.travel” domain and give control of it to a front organization controlled by IATA. If true, this is a serious breach of ICANN's own rules and undermines ICANN's legitimacy.

.ORG is handeled by Afilias Ltd. a company in Horsham PA.

Afilias Ltd., an Irish company whose U.S. offices are in Horsham, who will begin to maintain the Internet registry of domain names that end in .org. About 15 people work in the Horsham office. (Users typically pay $20 to buy domain names from registrars accredited by ICANN. The registrars, in turn, pay operators, such as Afilias.) Ram Mohan, is chief technology officer for Afilias in Horsham. He says you can register a .info name today, within two minutes, from anywhere in the world it used to be anywhere from 12 to 36 hours."

The .org database contains 2.3 million names, making it the fifth-largest after the better-known .com and .net, and the less-familiar but prolific country codes for Germany and the United Kingdom, .de and .uk. - .com. has more than 20 million names registered.

The .info domain contains nearly a million names, and Afilias earns $5.75 per year for each name. The company will collect $6 per name registered as .org, and give the Public Interest Registry $2.

.org is open to anyone, it is "a natural home for nonprofits as well as for profit-making entities that have nonprofit activities," Roland LaPlante, marketing officer for Afilias, said.

ICANN,announced that it was taking .org away from VeriSign, of Mountain View, Calif.,
the company that also operates .com and .net, and reassigning it to a nonprofit group called the Internet Society.
The Internet Society, in turn, contracted with Afilias to do the actual work.
The society also set up a subsidiary, called the Public Interest Registry, to oversee Afilias.

ICANNWatch, said they liked greater competition, but faulted the process that led to the choice of the new operator. Michael Froomkin, a founding editor said, while he had no reason to believe Afilias would do a bad job, the selection was "a lost opportunity to create greater competition." Afilias operates the recently created .info domain and therefore is an incumbent, he said. "A new player" should have been picked if ICANN truly wanted to increase competition, he said. He also said the Internet Society's bid had the edge because some of its members have close connections to ICANN. There were 11 bidders for the rights to operate .org.
The .org Update

The 7 new tlds handed out in 2000 were intended as a proof of concept, contracts included rigorous reporting requirements, everything from technical performance compliance to marketing plans. And that information should have been made public.

- David Maher, an Internet Society board member who will become chairman of the new Public Interest Registry, said its share of the .org revenue would help fund educational programs to promote the Internet.

David Farber, a technology guru and a founder of ICANNWatch, said it would be a problem if "these things are treated as cash cows to fund a lot of things."

Farber, says: "The danger is, the money from .org will be used to fund your favorite little projects. I have never thought it reasonable to 'tax' Internet users to fund somebody's particular interests." [ Note my comment re cash cow is a hang over from many early use of fee set asides to fund dubious efforts. They always say that they are intended to further the Internet and very very seldom do. Djf (particulars available on request]

9/3/02 ICANN Threatens to Take Away VeriSign's '.com' right to sell ".com" domain names if it fails to clean up its public database that records who owns which Web sites.
12/4/06 VERISIGN KEEPS CONTROL OF .COM UNTIL 2012 The U.S. government has approved a deal under which VeriSign, which has operated the .com domain since 1999, will retain control of the domain until 2012. The proposal, drafted by VeriSign and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), was presented to the U.S. Department of Commerce in March of this year. Since that time, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), an agency of the Department of Commerce, has been reviewing the proposal and comments on it. Specifically, many international organizations complained that control of the world's most popular Internet domain should not lie with a U.S. company. Other criticisms
included the length of the contract, which some said was too long. In the end, the agencies involved approved the contract, which includes limits on price increases.

2003

EDUCAUSE, is the sole registrar for names in the .edu domain. Internet domain registrations, and the Department of Commerce said last week that they would extend eligibility for a .edu domain name to nationally accredited post-secondary institutions that provide specialized training in health services, education, technology, and other professions. The change, which takes place in mid-April 2003, "will allow a broad segment of post-secondary education providers to benefit from the immediate recognition of the '.edu' tag on an Internet address," said EDUCAUSE Vice President Mark Luker. For more information on the policy change and links to eligible accrediting agencies, visit:
T he Department of Commerce awarded management of the domain to EDUCAUSE in October 2001. Requests for new names in the domain are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis for eligible institutions, and holders of .edu domain names must use this Web site to manage their domains and hosts. EDUCAUSE also is the exclusive provider of contact information for the .edu domain, available on the Whois server.

2002

.Kids Finally Finds a Home in the House
By Jim Wagner May 21, 2002
After a change in strategy, the House of Representatives passed "The Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act of 2002 Tuesday morning, placing ratification in the hands of the U.S. Senate

NeuStar, Inc., the Registry Administrator for .US Registrant Name: NEUSTAR Registrant Address1: Loudoun Tech Center Registrant Address2: 45980 Center Oak Plaza Registrant City: Sterling Registrant State/Province: VA Registrant Postal Code: 20166 Registrant Country: United States Registrant Country Code: US Registrant Phone Number: +1.5714345757 Registrant Facsimile Number: +1.5714345758 Registrant Email: support@neustar.us Registrant Application Purpose: P1 Registrant Nexus Category: C21