Ethos Capital seems on track to complete their takeover of .org early next year. ICANN claims it is powerless to stop the acquisition. ISOC president Andrew Sullivan suggested nothing but a court order would make ISOC change their minds. (To that end, optimists can write to the state DA, who still has to approve the sale.) Sullivan also reported in his latest public letter that the acquisition of PIR (their 990, for reference) was for $1.135B. This seems to be well below the market value of .org, even if the buyer doesn’t reconsider bolder price hikes. Lance Wiggs (investor, consultant, former councillor for InternetNZ) estimates that this undervalues the registry by $1B-10B, depending on how creatively it is managed, and that the investors took almost no risk for a chance at a 5x return. And while there is a range of estimates out there for the true value of .org, the sale price is on the low end under conservative assumptions. How did this happen? Among other things: - No competitive bid. [...] - No public market / sale analysis. [...] - No public story of how the deal came together. [...] - No discussion of alternatives to financing an endowment. [...] Sullivan also shared many conflicting thoughts in an interview with the Register: he thinks not many people care about the sale; public pushback has been strong; the sale would not have happened if there had been public discussion. His presentation of the offer to the ISOC Board also highlighted a need for speed and secrecy, and details were redacted from the board’s minutes. Continua su https://blogs.harvard.edu/sj/2019/12/02/the-dot-org-fire-sale-sold-for-half-... Giacomo