LawBytes Podcast – Episode 34 was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best way to convert your audio to text in 2019.
Michael Geist:
This is Law Bytes, a podcast with Michael Geist.
PIR:
What do the Red Cross, Wikipedia and the American Kite Flyers Association have in common? They all use the dot org domain to power their Web sites, connecting people and communities to actively engage for a good purpose. Managed by the Public Interest Registry, the dot org domain has given voice to the world’s most trusted organizations for over 30 years. Dot org is open for anyone who wants to establish credibility within their community, while making a positive impact in the world.
Michael Geist:
The dot org domain extension was established as one of the first top level domains in 1985 alongside dot com, dot net and a handful of others. In 2002, administration over the domain was awarded to the Public Interest Registry, a non-profit established by the Internet Society to run the extension. The Internet Society, better known as ISOC, was founded in 1992 by Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf, two Internet pioneers, to assist with standards development. Now ISOC initially struggled to maintain financial stability and the awarding of the dot-org extension in 2002, placed it on solid financial footing. The domain extension grew to be favoured by the public interest, a nonprofit community, and with over 10 million registered domains, it generates significant recurring revenue as registrants pay to renew their domain name registration each year. I should note that I played a very small role in the Public Interest Registry, serving on its inaugural advisory council and chairing its policy committee. Earlier this year, ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the entity that manages the domain name system reached a new registry agreement with PIR that removed price caps that had previously been in place. Within months, PIR announced that had been purchased by Ethos Capital, a private equity firm that includes a former CEO of ICANN among its founders. With a rumored purchase price of over a billion dollars, there’s big money for ISOC, but the deal has left the nonprofit community worried about potential price increases and policy changes to the domain that could impact online speech. Elliot Harmon, activism director with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, recently wrote about the issue and has been working on a campaign with NGOs from around the world opposed to the deal. He joined me on the podcast to discuss the background behind dot-org, the concerns with the sale and what can be done about it.
Michael Geist:
Elliot, welcome to the podcast.
Elliot Harmon:
Thanks a lot for having me, Michael.
Michael Geist:
Yeah, I’m so glad that you’ve joined because this is an issue that is really, I think, capturing the civil society and the Internet governance world by storm. You recently wrote a post on behalf of the EFF and dozens of civil society groups expressing concern with the proposed sale of the dot org domain. And I want to try to unpack the issues that are associated with the sale, why people are as upset as they are. But why don’t we start with some of the basics. People use domain names, of course, every day, but many people don’t, I think, pay much attention to Internet governance or domain names, specific issues. So why don’t we just start with what is the dot org domain?
Elliot Harmon:
So what we’re what we’re talking about here is when you look at any Web site that has a, you know, Elliot Harmon dot-org, EFF.org, Walmart.com or whatever. What we’re talking about here is those little three letter extensions. At the end of those domain name, URLs and those are referred to as top level domains or sometimes gTLDs. There is this whole kind of kind of complicated system of regulations and things relating to each of those TLDs. And the truth is the in a way, the sale of dot org was kind of just the most recent string, the most recent event and kind of a long thing that’s been taking place over the past year
