ICANN, PIR, Ethos Capital “Circus” Continues with Yet Another Letter from California AG

PALM BEACH, FL – The trio making a mockery of the definition of “public good” are probably hoping for another worldwide catastrophe to deflect the unwanted attention off their sour deal of transferring the .org registry from a non-profit (PIR) “Public Interest Registry” to a for-profit entity called “Ethos Capital” because the current one just isn’t enough.

In a letter dated April 15, 2020, the attorney general of California, Xavier Becerra, has written yet another letter to ICANN, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, based in Los Angeles, California, laying out the numerous reasons it should reject the transfer of control over the .ORG registry to Ethos Capital as it “raises serious concerns that cannot be overlooked.” You would think such transfer would appear outside of the public interest even by the most unfamiliar individual – far outside of the domain industry – when briefed with the facts.

Here is the letter in its entirely:

In response to the letter, or at least seemingly in response to the letter, ICANN has notified PIR of an extension of time to make their decision.

Unfortunately for ICANN, PIR and Ethos Capital, the entire transfer has received tremendous amounts of unanticipated attention since the deal was formulated. It seems pretty obvious the transfer should be rejected and that the more time that goes on the more obvious it is that even if the deal continues to move forward, there will likely be years of red-tape and investigations of how exactly the deal came about, who knew about .org price caps potentially being removed, and at what point they knew about it, including whether or not there was any involvement or cooperation from current or past ICANN board members.

John Colascione

About The Author: John Colascione is Chief Executive Officer of SEARCHEN NETWORKS®. He specializes in Website Monetization, is a Google AdWords Certified Professional, authored a how-to book called ”Mastering Your Website‘, and is a key player in several online businesses.