[CPWG] NYTimes: The .Org Mirage

Thu Dec 5 19:38:58 UTC 2019

Sure, I agree with all of that. However, it IS the case that those NOT  “involved in ICANN,” as you put it, DO believe there is something special about .ORG, something more trustworthy than the rest, and this is reinforced by PIRs marketing. WE are tasked with understanding, to the extent possible, and promoting the interests of “individual end users,” and Alan makes the point that Ethos will market this to for-profits, even more than currently, potentially undermining consumer trust (that we’re all admitting here is not justified). So I’m asking you, for just a minute, to put down your ire about this deal as well as your assumption (most likely true) about the malicious intentions of this piece, and think about whether there IS in fact a “trust” issue among individual end users that we should seek to preserve.

John has made the point that if REGISTRANTS lose trust in PIR, they will move to ccTLDs and, here too, I’m not sure why we should be concerned about a movement out of .ORG. What am I missing?

Most of what we SEEM to be saying is that we want there to be a not-for profit REGISTRY which has very little to do with .ORG. Just trying to get a handle on this.
Jonathan

From: Evan Leibovitch <evanleibovitch at gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, December 5, 2019 at 2:17 PM
To: Jonathan Zuck <JZuck at innovatorsnetwork.org>
Cc: "jmcc at hosterstats.com" <jmcc at hosterstats.com>, CPWG <cpwg at icann.org>
Subject: Re: [CPWG] NYTimes: The .Org Mirage

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<http://unhcr.org>) and my personal domain (telly.org<http://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<mailto: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<mailto: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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