[CPWG] [GTLD-WG] EFF : Nonprofit Community Stands Together to Protect .ORG

[Evan Leibovitch]

On Fri, 22 Nov 2019 at 22:36, Jonathan Zuck <JZuck at innovatorsnetwork.org>
wrote:

> Again, Nat. I’m simply putting forth arguments for both sides. If my
> assumptions are wrong, as you suggest, I’m happy to be better educated. I
> am truly only preaching we spend some time on this rather than make a knee
> jerk decision.  I make only two points:
>
>
>
>    - A non-profit is not necessarily a better steward of .ORG
>
>
Given that the perspective here is from within ICANN, not ISOC, I posit
that your point is far too narrow. It's not just about PIR's stewardship of
.ORG, it's also about the influence that the PIR ethos (sorry) brings
inside the ICANN registry community. The existence of at least one stable,
nonprofit gTLD registry (that isn't a specialty domain and is publicly
available) offers a calming influence on the rest of the field and shields
against its excesses of greed. So long as at least one major registry is
mission-driven rather than profit-driven, there is a fallback that IMO is a
factor in public confidence in the DNS.

That is, from *our* perspective (that is, the ICANN community) the holistic
benefits of a nonprofit PIR go beyond just the benefit to its own
registrants. Its very presence is a stabilizing factor, and preventing
destabilization is within ICANN's sphere of interest.

For reasons you already know, I too am not a fan of the pricing argument. a
nonprofit PIR could just as easily want to raise prices by 10% per year,
both to reduce speculators and fund public education programs. The issue of
complex enough without adding pricing.


>    - The interests of individual end users *might* not be in perfect
>    alignment with domain investors or non-profit registrants for that matter.
>
>
Agreed. Having said that, IMO it's in the public (end-user, non-registrant)
interest that there is a stable, safe registry designed for nonprofits
(even if it doesn't police that) that is itself a nonprofit that
understands their needs (ie, abuse of domains for fundraising). We can also
see in the release of .ONG/.NGO that PIR has worked at restrictive domains
and how the vetting is done. No other registry thought of that.

I agree in not rushing to judgment, so long as we don't drag our tails so
long as to become irrelevant. But I still feel that after evaluation of
evidence we may see that there is a confidence-in-the-DNS issue that DOES
suggest that we have a role to play,

- Evan
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