ICANN't approve the sale of .org to private equity – because California's Attorney General has... concerns The California State Attorney General's Office (CA-OAG) sent a letter last week to DNS overlord ICANN asking for confidential information about the planned sale of the .org registry and a delay of the transaction. ICANN, which disclosed the letter on Thursday, responded by notifying the Public Internet Registry (PIR), which …
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"Isn't it awful when some nanny state tires to stop people harming themselves and other people?"
Is it any more awful when some Laissez-faire state lets people do as they please and stupid people end up taking innocent people with them, including perhaps someone close to you?
And incidentally, it's kinda hard keeping your air clean when you live in a thermal inversion zone like Los Angeles County. Why do you think "California Emissions" were a thing decades back?
To ICANN's credit, they did post the letter from CA DOJ, AG on their website. I see that ICANN is a nonprofit registered in Calif and that's why Calif has jurisdiction on this. Among the 35 questions the AG has,
"23. Did ICANN approve a removal of the price cap for registration fees for .org domains?
24. If ICANN approved the removal...provide a detailed explanation how this occurred...'
25. (provide) All correspondence between ICANN, ISOC, PIR, and/or Ethos Capital regarding the removal of the price cap..."
and lastly
"35. Your conflict of interest policy."
Now the question is what can the CA AG do about it?
(An annoying side note - I couldn't find a direct link anywhere on California's oag.ca.gov website re this letter.)
"president brown "
you just reminded me of the streets of San Francisco (again)... and you'd trust CALI-FORNICATE-YOU politicians for ANYTHING???
Just because ICANN is incorporated in Cali-Fornicate-You does NOT mean that the Cali-Fornicate-You AG can do the job of the FTC or the SEC or anything that would NORMALLY oversee purchases of a portion of a business (whether non-profit or not). And 'harassment' lawsuits from an AG are _NEVER_ a good thing. If "the AG *FEELS*" is criteria to DELAY or even STIFLE a BUSINESS TRANSACTION, maybe it's time for ALL businesses to leave the state...
ICANN is already subject to review and oversight, isn't it? Why must the Cali-fornicate-you AG get involved? Because, of the politicians' "uber alles" goal, that's why!
ICANN ended being subject to the US Dept of Commerce in 2016, bob. Everything I've read so far suggests this sell-off of .org to a for-profit shell company was a done deal. I'm very confused in the point you're trying to make here. Are you saying the sale wasn't going to go through because someone else was going to step in with a rational voice and say this deal is nuts? Are you in favor of this deal that's blatantly a conflict of interest?
As far as your shallow view of California, you obviously haven't spent time below the Orange Curtain (Orange County, home of John Wayne Airport), Simi Valley (home of Ronald Reagan Library) or any of the lovely San Joaquin Valley or north of San Francisco, both home to oil & gas, ag, forestry and commercial fishing. Bastions all of right wing thinking.
>president brown "
You're a tad out of date. The governor is Gavin Newsom. The California AG is Xavier Becerra and he's not one that likes to be messed with. California is a largish state with an economy that's about the size of the UK's and, like the UK, it has an interest in people who work closed door deals to try to corner a market in things, especially if those 'things' are not so much real property as something that's held in trust for all of us.
I know that people who don't live here have strong opinions about a state they know nothing about, hence tortured constructs like "Cali-Fornicate-You". Its just like anywhere else -- it tends to be progressive but its more a consequence of necessity than ideology. (Read up on its history....)
that they'll actually get to the bottom of this story now.
On the other hand, if they really got a >1 billion dollar business planned out, what is the chance that some high-powered lawyers start running circles around the Californian AG? I expect that there will be some frantic calls to lawyers right now, because every further step from ICANN and PIR may turn out to be very expensive -- in terms of lawyer fees and (potentially) time served :).
Bu then, they probably can roll-over the lawyer cost onto the .org registration fees. If you have a money printing machine, why not use it?
Just watch the right ti repair bills. Thankfully most state officials notice the lies and scams but sadly lots of publicity recorded offers to "discuss this privately to explain the complex matters" followed by a 5 or 6 figure sum "donation" the next day. Amazing as said because this is all publically available info.
This does seem to be self-dealing, and it's extreme.
The secretly negotiated insider deal is over $1.1B. The net value is certainly much more, perhaps $5B. That is a huge amount of value to transfer from the public into private pockets.
Even if the deal doesn't happen, there should be a criminal investigation.
Cali-fornicate-you's AG has _NO_ jurisdiction here. He's just a "full of himself" liberal, like so many OTHER Cali-fornicate-you politicians.
(hopefully this is as bad as it gets with these idiots. There's another election this year, time to get rid of as many of them as we can! Unfortunately, and sadly, it most likely won't happen...)
I think the AG has more important fish to fry, anyway, like maybe prosecuting people who commit "quality of life" crimes, the way Giuliani did in NYC [made it a safe place to live again]. So all of this is just a bunch of POSTURING and a distraction from NOT doing anything about the REAL problems in Cali-fornicate-you [ like human poo on the streets of San Francisco ].
Nope. There's a whole sliding scale, from "unlawful" to "criminal", via "illegal" and "illicit".
Leaving your car in a parking space ten minutes after the meter has run out - unlawful. Not putting any money in the meter in the first place - illegal. Parking on the hard shoulder of a motorway - illicit. Parking in the centre lane of a motorway - criminal.
Nope. Unlawful and illegal are different things under English Law.
It used to be the case that having sex with someone you weren't married to was unlawful but nobody has been prosecuted for this in a very long time. (Recent legislation may have changed this - IANAL.)
Unlawful means you are not supposed/allowed to do something, but there is no criminal act. You might get fined but you won't go to chokey.
Never take legal advice from an engineer.
Piracy has been illegal for about 2000 years.)
One hopes that PIR and ISOC refuse to disclose their data resulting in either a court suit and/or a state takeover of their offices to find the requested info. I'd prefer the second choice as it would give the green light to the state to go fishing for more incriminating evidence on ICANN's other activities.
There is a LOT of investment in a namespace, so while a new domain in and of itself might be cheap, moving one's internet presence to a new domain is not cheap.
There then remains the "who will pay for the .org"? Example. children.org moves to children.nac. children.org is not renewed, goes on the market, and is bought by nefarious people who pretend to be a charity.
This is non-profit organisations who are typically using all their money for more worthwhile causes than lining the pockets of ICANN, PIC, and whoever else is involved.
To make that work, everyone would have to agree on the domain to move to, and everyone would have to move more or less together. And the new TLD would need to have its hands meticulously tied to prevent it from pulling the same thing in future.
The alternative - several TLDs competing for the non-profit market segment - would lead to confusion, factionalism and loss of trust in the whole idea. In other words, mission accomplished - for the big-money interests that want to drive such tawdry "non-profit" nonsense to the fringes of the web and allow a clearer run for the good, healthy pursuit of $$$.
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