Public Interest Registry

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Public Interest Registry
TypeNon-profit
IndustryInternet, Domain registry
Founded2002 in Reston, Virginia
FounderLynn St.Amour, Hal Lubsen, Ram Mohan, David Maher
Key people
Jon Nevett, Judy Song-Marshall, Paul Diaz, Brian Cimbolic, Elizabeth Szabo, Anand Vora, Mary Cornwell, Rick Wilhelm
ParentInternet Society Edit this on Wikidata
Websitepir.org

Public Interest Registry is a Reston, Virginia-based not-for-profit created by the Internet Society in 2002 to manage the .ORG top-level domain. It took over operation of .ORG in January 2003 and launched the .NGO and .ONG top-level domains in March 2015.[1]

In November 2019, it was announced the Public Interest Registry would be sold by the Internet Society to private equity investment firm Ethos Capital for 1.135 billion USD,[2] but in April 2020, ICANN decided to reject the sale.[3]

Domains[]

.ORG[]

Main article: .org
The number of .ORG domains registered with the Public Interest Registry

.ORG is the third largest generic top-level domain of the Domain Name System used in the internet. .ORG domains have been registered by Public Interest Registry since 2003. Craigslist.org and Wikipedia.org are among the more popular .org users.[4] Since 2009, Public Interest Registry has published a bi-annual report called "The Dashboard"[5] on the number of registered .ORG domains. There were more than 8 million registered .ORG in 2009,[4] 8.8 million in 2010,[6] and 9.6 million in 2011.[7] Public Interest Registry registered the ten millionth .org domain in June, 2012.[8] In June 2015 there were 10.5 million .org domains registered.[9]

Public Interest Registry promotes and publicizes the .ORG domain. While .ORG is an open domain, Public Interest Registry wants more people to view .ORG as a domain for communities and entities that serve the public good, rather than being perceived as directed to non-profits.[10] In 2010, Public Interest Registry launched "WhyIChose.org" as part of campaign to promote the .ORG domain extension.[11]

It conducted a survey of consumers in 2011 on how domain names are perceived by internet users. The survey found that 81 percent of Americans still rely on an organization's website before Twitter or Facebook. It also suggested .ORG sites were seen as more trustworthy.[12] Respondents were more likely to turn to .ORG websites in a crisis, more likely to post content on .ORG sites and to trust information on a .ORG domain. It also found that younger age groups were almost twice as likely to register a .ORG as Americans age 55-64.[13]

In July 2015, Public Interest Registry marked the 30th anniversary of the first .ORG registration, and launched a website featuring a timeline of .ORG registrations from 1985 to 2015 and a gallery of .ORG websites.[14] The first .ORG domain name to be registered was mitre.org.[15]

.NGO and .ONG[]

Main article: .NGO and .ONG

In June 2011, ICANN expanded the internet's naming system to allow applications for new top-level domain names.[16] Public Interest Registry declared publicly an interest in the .NGO domain in August 2011[17] and applied for it in May 2012.[18] It also applied for an equivalent domain, .ONG, which stands for "Organisation Non Gouvernementale" in French, and is also recognizable in Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and other Romance languages.[19][20] Unlike the .ORG domain, .NGO will require validation of the registrant's non-governmental status.[16] Non-governmental organizations told Public Interest Registry they needed a closed domain[21] that validated the legitimacy of websites accepting online donations to avoid fraud.[21][22] Public Interest Registry plans to use the funds from selling .NGO domains[23] to develop an "NGO Community Program" to reach out to NGOs in developing nations.[16] It also intends to create a directory service of NGOs to support their SEO and visibility, and develop a closed community for NGOs to learn from each other.[23] The new domains have been publicly available since May 6, 2015.

History[]

The Domain Name System was created in 1983 to create a more stable and redundant network of networks and to make the internet simpler for more people to use.

.ORG was one of the original top-level domains (along with .COM, .EDU, .MIL, and .GOV) that launched a year later in 1984. .ORG was intended to be the home for organizations of a non-commercial character that did not meet the requirements for the other top-level domains.

From 1984 to 1992, .ORG was managed by the Stanford Research Institute under a grant from the United States government. At this time, .ORG domain names were issued free of charge upon request.

In 1993, the operations of .ORG were privatized and transferred from the Stanford Research Institute to Network Solutions – the single-bidder for further developing the domain name registration service for the internet – under a five-year agreement with the National Science Foundation. Network Solutions charged $100 per .ORG domain name for a two-year registration, a rate that was subsequently lowered to $70 following a 1997 lawsuit charging Network Solutions with antitrust violations.[24]

In 1998, the United States Department of Commerce issued the white paper that resulted in the formation of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). One early decision that ICANN made was to create a vertical separation of registries (the party that manages the underlying database of domain names) and registrars (the party that acts as a retail provider of domain names).

The creation of ICANN brought some competition to the domain name industry when new generic top-level domains like .BIZ, .INFO, and .MUSEUM launched in 2001. Network Solutions, however, retained its monopoly over .ORG, as well as .COM and .NET. Network Solutions was acquired by Verisign in 2000.[25]

In 2001, in order to keep .COM and .NET (the most financially lucrative of the legacy top-level domains), Verisign voluntarily agreed to surrender its control of .ORG by 2003. At the time, ICANN stated that transferring .ORG away from Verisign and to a new, purpose-built registry would “return the .ORG registry to its original purpose,” and enable .ORG to return “to its originally intended function as a registry operated by and for non-profit organizations.”[26]

Furthermore, article 5.1.4 of the 2001 .ORG Registry Agreement between ICANN and Verisign required that Verisign “pay to ICANN or ICANN’s designee the sum of US $5 million, to be used by ICANN in it [sic] sole discretion to establish an endowment to be used to fund future operating costs of the non-profit entity designated by ICANN as successor operator of the .ORG registry.”[27]

The criteria for re-assigning .ORG included:

  • Criterion 4 (differentiation): “A key objective is differentiation of the .ORG TLD from TLDs intended for commercial purposes. … Proposals should include detailed planned marketing practices designed to … promote and attract registrations from the global noncommercial community”
  • Criterion 5 (responsiveness to the noncommercial community): “The successor operator’s policies and practices should strive to be responsive to and supportive of the noncommercial Internet user community”;
  • Criterion 6 (public support among noncommercial users): “Demonstrated support among registrants in the .ORG TLD, particularly those actually using .ORG domain names for noncommercial purposes” and
  • Criterion 7 (affordability): “In view of the noncommercial character of many present and future .ORG registrants, affordability is important. A significant consideration will be the price at which the proposal commits to provide initial and renewal registrations.”

Eleven bids for .ORG were received from operators who were assessed as being qualified to manage the registry.

The Internet Society was among the 11 bidders. Though the Internet Society did not receive the absolute highest score out of the 11 bids, as assessed by independent and staff evaluators, it was nonetheless awarded a perpetual contract[28] to manage .ORG. Articles 4.1 and 4.2 of the .ORG Registry Agreement outline that, provided there have not been breaches of payment obligations to ICANN and there have not been three or more “fundamental and material breach[es]” of the contract, the contract will automatically renew for a further 10 years – in perpetuity. The reason for awarding the contract to the Internet Society included the Internet Society’s global membership, important mission, and non-profit status.

In 2002, the Internet Society was in a dire financial position. There were significant concerns that the Internet Society’s financial position could sink .ORG. In order to address these concerns, the Internet Society proposed creating the Public Interest Registry as a separate 501(c)3 non-profit to manage .ORG and to insulate it from the Internet Society. The Public Interest Registry was established with a membership of one, the Internet Society, governed by a separate board.

The decision made by the ICANN Board to allocate .ORG to the Internet Society was consistent with RFC 1591, which states that “a designated manager for a domain” is a “trustee for the delegated domain, and ha[s] a duty to serve the community.”[29]

The community that .ORG was intended to serve is non-profit organizations, and Lynn St. Amour, who was then President and CEO of the Internet Society, committed the Internet Society to working to ensure that the non-governmental sector shaped any decisions affecting the .ORG ecosystem.[30]

Afilias was selected as the back-end technical provider for .ORG under contract with the Public Interest Registry.[31][32] The then-largest domain transfer in history[12] occurred on January 1, 2003, when ICANN had VeriSign delegate 2.6 million domains to Public Interest Registry.[33] An Internet Society Vice President, David Maher, became the chairman.[32] The following month, Ed Viltz became the organization's first CEO.[34]

Marc Rotenberg, the founding Board Chair of the Public Interest Registry, stated in an op-ed that when the Public Interest Registry was established, “our aim was to promote the non-commercial use of the internet … We believed there should be a space of the Internet to promote non-commercial use and that the governance of the .ORG domain should respect the essential character of the users of the domain.”[35]

On June 23, 2010, Public Interest Registry's technology provider Afilias implemented[36] the Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) protocol for .ORG, making .ORG the first open gTLD to sign its zone.[37] DNSSEC is intended to prevent cache poisoning attacks by making sure internet users arrive at the URL they intended.[38][39] The implementation began in test environments in mid-2009.[40] The protocol was [38] implemented by Public Interest Registry's technical partner Afilias[41] during the tenure of former CEO, Alexa Raad, who played a role in creating the DNSSEC Industry Coalition. Raad resigned from Public Interest Registry in late 2010.[42] The non-profit had an interim CEO, until it recruited former Afilias executive Brian Cute as its third chief executive officer on January 14, 2011.[43] After a successful tenure, Brian Cute stepped down as CEO in May 2018.[44]

After the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Public Interest Registry waived renewal fees for Japan-based .org domains to prevent them from expiring due to intermittent internet access.[45]

In 2017, PIR renegotiated their agreement with Afilias to manage their registrations, reducing their overhead.

On 17 December 2018, Jon Nevett became CEO of the Public Interest Registry.[46]

On 13 May 2019, ICANN announced that they would remove the price cap on .ORG registrations.[47]

Advocacy[]

Public Interest Registry often supports ICANN on policy and privacy issues on the internet. In 2003, Public Interest Registry wrote a letter to ICANN supporting its opposition of wildcard redirection services that automatically redirect internet users to correct spelling errors and typos. The letter supported ICANN's request for VeriSign to voluntarily suspend a DNS wildcard service called Site Finder and asked ICANN to make a policy against similar services across the internet.[48] Public Interest Registry and other organizations opposed the move by VeriSign, because automatic redirects may affect spam filters and mail servers that rely on error messages from non-existent domains.[49]

Public Interest Registry reduced domain tasting by charging fees to registrars that cancel 90 percent of their domains in less than five days. In 2007, ICANN used that as a model for a similar proposal to curb domain tasting through non-refundable fees.[50] Public Interest Registry supported ICANN's expansion of top-level domain names. The CEO, Brian Cute, commented that internet users will still gravitate towards established domain names, but new domains will target specific communities.[51] Public Interest Registry has also urged ICANN to address privacy implications of the WHOIS database.[52][53] The organization is critical of the security of DNS filtering techniques[12] and supports the DNSSEC protocol.[11] It also shuts down .org-based phishing scams.[12]

Proposed sale of the Public Interest Registry[]

On 13 November 2019 the Internet Society announced that it was divesting of the Public Interest Registry, and that Ethos Capital would be acquiring its assets, including its holdings of Registry Agreements.[54] Following concerns about the elimination of price caps, Ethos Capital stated on their website, "Our plan is to live within the spirit of historic practice when it comes to pricing,"[55] which they later clarified to mean raising prices by an average of 10% per year. This is the maximum that the Public Interest Registry was allowed to raise prices starting in 2016, though it never chose to do so.

The sale led to concern over PIR's transition to a for-profit venture, especially in view of the removal of price caps on .org registrations.[56][57][58] People who came out in opposition to the sale included Tim Berners-Lee and Marc Rotenberg,[59] the first chair of the Public Interest Registry, as well as previous Trustees along with the first Executive Director of the Internet Society. On 22 November 2019 NTEN launched a website savedotorg.org for organizations and others to express their opposition to the sale.[60] Over 25,000 people signed a petition opposing the sale, and a demonstration was held outside ICANN's office in Los Angeles in January 2020. On 29 November 2019, it was revealed that the purchase price is $1.135 billion. [61]

In late January 2020, ICANN halted its final approval of the sale after the Attorney General of California requested detailed documentation from all parties, citing concerns that both ICANN and the Internet Society had potentially violated their public interest missions as registered charities subject to the laws of California.[62] In February, the Internet Society's Chapter Advisory Council (which represents its membership) began the process to adopt a motion rejecting the sale if certain conditions were not complied with.[63]

On 30 April 2020, the ICANN Board, saying it was "the right thing to do," withheld its consent to the transfer of control of the Public Internet Registry to Ethos Capital, effectively killing the proposed deal.[64][65]

References[]

  1. ^ "TLD Startup Information". ICANN. Retrieved 24 November 2015.
  2. ^ "The Internet Society & Public Interest Registry: A New Era of Opportunity (PIR's press release)". .ORG. 2019-11-13. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  3. ^ "ICANN Board Withholds Consent for a Change of Control of the Public Interest Registry (PIR)".
  4. ^ a b Ragan, Steve (March 12, 2010). "DNSSEC to become standard on .ORG domains by end of June". The Tech Herald. Archived from the original on January 3, 2019. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
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  6. ^ Berkens, Michael (February 14, 2011). ".ORG Grows Over 10% To Over 8.8 Million Registrations". The Domains. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
  7. ^ Prestipino, Peter (February 16, 2012). "The .ORG Registry Grows 10 Percent". Website Magazine. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
  8. ^ Goldstein, David (July 12, 2012). "ORG Seventh TLD To Pass Ten Millionth Registration Milestone". DomainPulse.
  9. ^ "The .ORG Dashboard". Public Interest Registry. Retrieved 24 November 2015.
  10. ^ "Alexa Read". Executive Leaders Radio. December 17, 2009. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
  11. ^ a b Maul, Kimberly (July 8, 2010). ".ORG launches education campaigns around domain names". PRWeek. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
  12. ^ a b c d Flook, Bill (March 18, 2011). "Public Interest Registry takes extra steps to secure its .ORG enterprise". Washington Business Journal. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
  13. ^ "IN .ORG WE TRUST: Survey Reveals Americans Turn To The .ORG Domain In Times of Crisis and Calm" (Press release). Public Interest Registry. September 15, 2011. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
  14. ^ "Happy 30th .org". Public Interest Registry. Archived from the original on 13 October 2015. Retrieved 24 November 2015.
  15. ^ Gautam, Roy (2009). ICSE Computer Applications. Allied Publishers. p. 100. ISBN 978-81-7764-996-3. Retrieved 24 November 2015.
  16. ^ a b c Kanani, Rahim (July 10, 2012). "NGO Domain Name in the Works for Global Nonprofit Community". Forbes. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
  17. ^ Sniderman, Zachary (August 2, 2011). "With New Domain Names on Market, .ORG Guns for .NGO". Mashable. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
  18. ^ Cute, Brian (May 31, 2012). "Ushering in the Dot-NGO Boom: Protecting the Online Interests of Non-Governmental Organizations". The Huffington Post. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
  19. ^ Gruenwald, Juliana (May 31, 2012). ".BANK, .GLOBAL Could be Coming to Your Browser". National Journal. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
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  21. ^ a b Thi Pham, Lieu (April 11, 2012). "Charities hope .NGO domain will end scams". ZDNet. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
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  23. ^ a b Petronzio, Matt (May 31, 2012). "Internet Non-Profit Applies for New Domains: Meet .ngo and .ong [EXCLUSIVE]". Mashable. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
  24. ^ "Domain name suit to include NSF". CNET. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
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  30. ^ "ICANN | Archives | ICANN Public Forum in Bucharest Real-Time Captioning". archive.icann.org. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
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  32. ^ a b Cooper, Porus (October 18, 2002). "They'll be registering .ORG names in Horsham". The Philadelphia Inquirer. pp. Business, Page C01.
  33. ^ "The History of .ORG". Public Interest Registry. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
  34. ^ Wybenga, Eric (2012). @10Million.org: A Quarter Century in the Life of a Domain (PDF) (First ed.). Reston, Virginia: Public Interest Registry.
  35. ^ Gilliland, Donald (2019-12-08). "Save the .ORG domain and all it symbolizes". TheHill. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
  36. ^ "Afilias' Technology Successfully Signs .ORG Zone with DNSSEC". Retrieved 2018-09-15.
  37. ^ Mohan, Ram (June 23, 2010). "DNSSEC Becomes a Reality Today at ICANN Brussels". SecurityWeek. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
  38. ^ a b Diaz, Paul (December 8, 2011). "Online Property Protections and the Public Interest". CircleID. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
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  40. ^ Jackson, William (July 23, 2009). "Public Interest Registry beings moving DNSSEC into live domains". Government Computer News. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
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  45. ^ Sniderman, Zachary (April 11, 2011). "Japanese .ORG Websites Get Renewal Fees Waived After Disaster". Mashable. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
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  47. ^ July 2019, Anthony Spadafora 02. "ICANN lifts price caps on .org domains". TechRadar. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
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  49. ^ Lemos, Robert (October 3, 2003). "VeriSign calls halt to .com detours". CNET. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
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  52. ^ "Government Hearing Reinforces Push for US Control of Internet". COMMWEB. July 26, 2006.
  53. ^ Claburn, Thomas (July 26, 2006). "Government Hearing Reinforces Push For U.S. Control Of Internet". InformationWeek. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
  54. ^ "Ethos Capital to Acquire Public Interest Registry from the Internet Society". Internet Society. Retrieved 30 November 2019.
  55. ^ "Information Regarding Ethos Capital's Agreement to Acquire Public Interest Registry from the Internet Society". keypointsabout.org. Retrieved 30 November 2019.
  56. ^ Harmon, Elliot (2019-11-22). "Nonprofit Community Stands Together to Protect .ORG". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  57. ^ Peters, Jay (2019-11-13). "The org that doles out .org websites just sold itself to a for-profit company". The Verge. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  58. ^ "Breaking: Private Equity company acquires .Org registry". Domain Name Wire. 2019-11-13. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  59. ^ Center, Electronic Privacy Information. "EPIC - .ORG Sold to Private Equity Firm, Transparency Diminished". epic.org. Retrieved 2019-12-04. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  60. ^ "About". savedotorg.org. Retrieved 30 November 2019.
  61. ^ Sullivan, Andrew. "Advancing the Internet Society's Mission Into the Future". keypointsabout.org. Retrieved 30 November 2019.
  62. ^ at 21:24, Thomas Claburn in San Francisco 31 Jan 2020. "ICANN't approve the sale of .org to private equity – because California's Attorney General has... concerns". www.theregister.co.uk. Retrieved 2020-02-22.
  63. ^ at 07:12, Kieren McCarthy in San Francisco 19 Feb 2020. "Now Internet Society told to halt controversial .org sale… by its own advisory council: 'You misread the community mindset around dot-org'". www.theregister.co.uk. Retrieved 2020-02-22.
  64. ^ "ICANN blocks controversial sale of .org domain to a private equity firm".
  65. ^ "ICANN Board Withholds Consent for a Change of Control of the Public Interest Registry (PIR)". Retrieved 2020-04-30.

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