No Changes to PIR Operation Expected After ICANN Nixed Sale
ICANN's rejection of the Public Internet Registry deal won't affect the .org community, a PIR spokesperson emailed us. "PIR will continue to be an exemplary registry" that supports the work of the mission-driven .org community, he said. Internet Society President…
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Andrew Sullivan said he expects PIR to continue running its registries "in an exemplary fashion and in strict conformance" with its agreements with ICANN. The domain name industry has changed in recent years, so registries need to adapt, Sullivan emailed us. ISOC, which had hoped to sell PIR to private equity firm Ethos Capital, "believed that a specialist investor would be in a better position to support" PIR's stability, but since ICANN "has refused its consent (see 2005010003) that avenue is not open to PIR." Ethos Capital didn't comment Wednesday. The registry "did not ask to be sold and it was far from fun to be constantly attacked for it, but the work we did supporting the .ORG Community in spite of it was phenomenal," blogged CEO Jon Nevett. PIR plans to expand the .org community to underserved regions in Africa, Latin and Central America and Southeast Asia, he said. Regardless of what ISOC and ICANN do, the matter highlighted the extent to which the current domain name ecosystem "depends on informal understandings of what the various actors are going to do," rather than formal commitments, said Firefox Chief Technology Officer Eric Rescorla. Many who opposed the sale expected ISOC would continue to manage .org in the public interest even though PIR's registry agreement doesn't include such an obligation. The deal's opponents and supporters seemed to have "radically different expectations" about ICANN's role, said Rescorla: "It remains to be seen whether this is an isolated incident or whether this is a sign of a deeper disconnect that will cause increasing friction."