NWR: .org

[Christian Miller (CMM)]

Irrelevant to wine, but I had to let off steam somewhere. A private equity firm called Ethos Capital is purchasing the .org domain from The Public Interest Registry for $1.14 billion. Ethos Capital “appears to have only two employees" (per Slate), plus backing of funds associated with Mitt Romney’s family and the Johnsons who own Fidelity Investments. This has useless financial arbitrage and rent-seeking stamped all over it.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

Far more dangerous than that. Of course, the perversion that is calling itself "Ethos" will simply jack the rates - making it difficult for struggling non-profits to afford an internet presence. (That jimmy is already in... just before the sale, all the price caps were mysteriously lifted.)

The greater problem is that Blah-Blah Capital will have no compunctions about revealing the owners of these sites to the fascist and strong-arm governments who would eagerly pay to know (and then go quash dissent). People will die.

Read.

 

[Christian Miller (CMM)]

The greater problem is that Blah-Blah Capital will have no compunctions about revealing the owners of these sites to the fascist and strong-arm governments who would eagerly pay to know (and then go quash dissent). People will die.

Read.

Good and scary point. Like when Assange dumped all those documents onto the net with no redacting. Per Slate, "ICANN has delayed approval by 30 days in order to review the deal. The review period will end Feb. 17." No specific info on who, when or where to complain to.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
Like when Assange dumped all those documents onto the net with no redacting.

Assange is a true anarchist and has burned his bridges.

Per Slate, "ICANN has delayed approval by 30 days in order to review the deal. The review period will end Feb. 17." No specific info on who, when or where to complain to.

The only thing possible is to pressure ICANN to rescind the deal. Or, maybe, make them delay it long enough for a state investigation to start. click