[CPWG] NYTimes: The .Org Mirage

[Evan Leibovitch]

I'm not sure I understand the question.

Anyone involved in ICANN has been made aware that, by and large, there is
no reason to trust *any* "open" TLD (whether gTLDs or ccTLDs acting as
generics).

My upset is with the writing of an article that begins with the strawman
assumption that .org is to be trusted then knocks the premise down. It
writes in a vacuum as if all other domains don't share the same malaise. In
that regard this is misinformation, the use of a kernel of truth to launch
targeted bullshit.

The history of .org (which has been argued to death in the ISOC list) makes
clear that the original purpose of dot-org was as a none-of-the-above TLD,
intended for any registrant that dd not go logically into .com, .net, .edu,
.gov, .int or .mil. It was a catchall TLD that was suitable for the United
Nations Refugee Agency (unhcr.org) and my personal domain (telly.org) and
all sorts of other things. Many of those other things were not trustworthy,
that's no surprise.

The assertion that .org is not just used by nonprofits has been stating the
obvious for decades. To call it news now is a deliberate attempt to mislead
and divert.

Jonathan, you know that I've cared about public trust in ICANN's management
of the DNS -- or rather, the lack thereof -- for a long time. This op-ed is
not designed to advance public awareness or debate on that topic of trust.
It's a targeted use of misinformation to serve a political purpose.

- Evan



On Fri, 6 Dec 2019 at 02:56, Jonathan Zuck <JZuck at innovatorsnetwork.org>
wrote:

> How would an "expert" have approached this topic of trust in .ORG? I'm not
> trying to be a jerk here but living in DC for 30 years, I've seen LOTS of
> .ORG sites that were fronts for corporations or other disingenuous actors.
> I know Evan is upset about the fact that it's being written now, in the
> context of this controversy, but from the perspective of trust, are folks
> (are WE?!) right to be trusting of .ORG domains in their current form?
>
> On 12/5/19, 1:35 PM, "John McCormac" <jmcc at hosterstats.com> wrote:
>
>     On 05/12/2019 18:22, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
>     > It's not wrong, but its context is disingenuous.
>     >
>     > At its superficial level it's fear-mongering (you can't
> automatically
>     > trust a domain just 'cause it's in dot-org, a characteristic common
> to
>     > almost all TLDs).
>     >
>     > At a deeper level it's an attempt to discredit (or at least dilute)
> the
>     > massive and nearly universal opposition to the PIR conversion by
>     > non-profit organizations.
>     >
>     > On the whole I consider it a FUD piece.
>
>     It is worse than a FUD piece. It is knocking copy with token people
> who
>     might appear to have some expertise but are, in reality, non-expert.
> It
>     is classic negative PR. All that's missing is the "Some people say".
>
>     Regards...jmcc
>     --
>     **********************************************************
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>
>

-- 
Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada
@evanleibovitch or @el56
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