ICANNs founding chairman joins the battle to keep .org out of private hands

In November, the Internet Society (ISOC), which owns the Public Interest Registry (PIR), the group that maintains the .org top-level domain, announced it would sell PIR to Ethos Capital, a private equity firm — an ownership structure that would seem to be at odds with what .org represents. Today, a group of internet and nonprofit leaders formed a nonprofit cooperative corporation that’s trying to stop the sale and become the future stewards of the .org domain instead (via The New York Times).

The new non-profit cooperative corporation, officially called the Cooperative Corporation of .ORG Registrants, is led by many people who currently have or have had influence over the inner workings of the Internet, including Esther Dyson, the...

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