ICANN vetoes sale of dotorg domain

A privateequity firm will not gain control of dotorg, the digital real estate that is home to millions of nonprofits, nongovernmental organizations and community groups.

The board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees the internet naming system, decided last week to veto the sale of the rights to the domain to Ethos Capital, which had offered more than $1 billion.

Maarten Botterman, the chair of ICANN, wrote in a blog post that after weighing all the considerations, rejecting Ethos’ proposed bid was “reasonable, and the right thing to do.”

Ever since the planned sale was announced in November, the deal stirred fierce opposition. Dotorg is best known as the cyberneighborhood for nonprofit organizations with civic missions like the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch and NPR.

To many, handing control of dotorg to a privateequity firm seemed almost heresy. The growing ranks of opponents eventually included internet pioneers, nonprofit leaders and the attorney general of California.

The opponents raised several concerns, including the risk of steep price hikes, underinvestment and censorship. Ethos Capital tried to address those worries by pledging to set up a “stewardship council” of outside experts and making “public interest commitments” to restrain price increases and not censor web content.

But critics remained unconvinced. They did not believe that a privateequity firm, driven by the need to deliver rich returns for investors, would act in the best interests of what they regard as the domain of online civic society.

In an interview Friday, Botterman said a “convincing majority” of the 15 voting members of board opposed the Ethos Capital bid. The overarching concern, he said, was the apparent “lack of guarantees that the spirit that was always intended for dotorg” would be preserved if the privateequity firm gained control.