Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/11/14/private-equity-company-acquire.html
…
7 Likes
“say what you will about the tenets of national socialism, at least it’s an ethos.”
O shit, got beat to the reference by @beschizza
13 Likes
They have the best intentions [Private equity company], I’m sure.
10 Likes
With a name like Ethos Capital I have no doubt they’ll be figuring out the DNS equivalent of a fiery bust-out very quickly.
14 Likes
Ethos Capital? LOL. I love how stupid people think we are.
5 Likes
Perhaps it is time to re-root the internet…
6 Likes
Well, that’s two nonprofit domains I’ll need to re-home. What’s my best option among the new TLD’s for something that conveys approximately the same meaning as .org, but isn’t likely to enter a price-gouging spiral in the immediate future?
4 Likes
Revolution. That is the only way to be safe.
5 Likes
3 Likes
Presumably this is entirely by consensus. If enough parties decide that this is not acceptable, they can just refuse to use that registry and use a different one. Am i missing something?
1 Like
If it were not for the huge chaos that would result in having multiple DNS systems in play at the same time, it is the possibility that I am referencing.
I think it is fear of this chaos that is keeping people from seriously considering this; I wouldn’t exactly call that fear “consensus”…
2 Likes
I’m hoping someone here can clarify the double whammy, because this is not my area of expertise.
Whammy 1) Restrictions on .org domain pricing. -I guess I was unaware it was restricted before; should I expect that in our predatory corporate world I’ll have to cough up the equivalent of inflated insulin to keep my domain?
Whammy 2) Like heng, I wonder how this works. Before, I could buy/renew my domain through Blue Host or GoDaddy whatever for like eleven bucks. Do these Ethos guys take that over? Or are they above the hosting services/domain registrars. like wholesalers and they cvan npoew raise tyhe wholesale price? (I said this was not my area)
And a new Whammy 3) If this can happen to .org which was initially set up to denote non-profits and the like, what prevents this greedy evil (if that is what it is) from happening to whatever extension we all go to? I.e., is nothing safe from parasitic market forces?
3 Likes
Exactly. You got this. Welcome to the future that Reagan helped build.
11 Likes
It’s increasingly obvious that we cannot afford capitalism
9 Likes
My understanding is it is as you say with the hosting companies reselling registration from one of a handful of core “top level domain” registrars that handle everything for one or more TLD’s. Public Interest Registry is the sole registrar responsible for everything under the .org TLD.
2 Likes
Wait, am I going to lose my 30 year email address, which although it was sold to Earthlink, I call a vanity plate in cyberspace because it is igc.org. Who remembers IGC?
blah blah secure its future through more stable, diversified and sustainable financial resources than it has at present, allowing the organization to plan for the long term and advance its vision of an Internet for everyone on an even broader scale blah blah blah
4 Likes
If you qualify, you could try .NGO, though that’s also owned by PIR and its new Private Equity Group.
More background in a moment.
Some out-of-date background:
.ORG hasn’t actually been restricted to nonprofits since 1999 (nor has .NET been restricted to internet infrastructure), and in 2015, Public Interest Registry (the nonprofit that was just acquired by “Ethos”) introduced .NGO (bundled with .ONG), which is restricted to actual NGOs. in 2014 I worked on an automated credential verification system for .NGO (I worked for Afilias, the registry services provider for PIR at the time; I left before .NGO was actually launched); the thinking was less “stick it to the real charities” and more “nobody has any trust in .org anymore anyway, so let’s build something that actually has meaning again.”
I don’t know which if any of the systems I worked on were adopted, and I haven’t personally tried to register a .NGO domain.
I’m not endorsing this purchase, or the change ICANN approved in the charter for .ORG, or even the use of .NGO, but there is some background.
2 Likes
bel.ong, b.ong, s.ong, wr.ong, d.ong not available.
sol.ong, kingk.ong, beerp.ong are all available.
so is hongk.ong which would be a great domain for the protests.
1 Like
