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Sale of Public Interest Registry and .ORG domain called off
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
nonprofit business advisor
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1949-3193
pISSN - 1531-5428
DOI - 10.1002/nba.30800
Subject(s) - ethos , corporation , censorship , the internet , business , public interest , capital (architecture) , public domain , equity (law) , finance , public administration , advertising , public relations , political science , law , archaeology , world wide web , computer science , history , philosophy , theology
Just days before the deal was to be finalized, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers announced it had rejected the proposed sale of the Public Interest Registry to Ethos Capital, a private equity firm. The sale, which would have cost Ethos Capital $1.135 billion, was beset by controversy since it was announced in November 2019 because of concerns expressed by the nonprofit community. Most notably, nonprofits worried that private‐sector control of the .ORG top‐level domain, which PIR has owned since 2003, would have led to higher prices, censorship and other burdens for the philanthropic community—more than 10.5 million domain names are registered as .orgs.