LA says: We all need .ORG! Don’t let a private equity firm take it over!

Digital is crucial to the work of millions of nonprofits and NGOs worldwide through our .ORG websites. LA has 2 opportunities in the next week to help ensure open and affordable websites for organizations working for the public good. This is an important moment in the SaveDotOrg campaign and we invite you to join us!

Why you should act

Organizations working in the public interest must have open and affordable websites to make a difference in our digital world!

The sale of the .ORG to Ethos Capital could impact millions of individuals and organizations who have a .ORG website, opening the door to potential censorship and price increases on domain registration and renewals.

Momentum is building

We can stop this sale and make sure .ORGs are protected! Over 600 organizations – including Girl Scouts of America, Greenpeace and Wikimedia – have signed the petition since November and the sale has not been able to proceed to date.

Here are the concerns

It smells kinda fishy! Ethos Capital was formed less than a year ago for what looks to me like the purpose of taking over .ORG – and they’re paying $1.135B! SaveDotOrg says the agreement gives the registry the power to make several policy decisions that would be detrimental to the .ORG community:

• The power to raise .ORG registration fees without the approval of ICANN or the .ORG community. A .ORG price hike would put many cash-strapped NGOs in the difficult position of either paying the increased fees or losing the legitimacy and brand recognition of a .ORG domain.

• The power to develop and implement Rights Protection Mechanisms unilaterally, without consulting the .ORG community . If such mechanisms are not carefully crafted in collaboration with the NGO community, they risk censoring completely legal nonprofit activities.

• The power to implement processes to suspend domain names based on accusations of “activity contrary to applicable law.” The .ORG registry should not implement such processes without understanding how state actors frequently target NGOs with allegations of illegal activity. A registry could abuse these powers to do significant harm to the global NGO sector, intentionally or not. We cannot afford to put them into the hands of a private equity firm that has not earned the trust of the NGO community. .ORG must be managed by a leader that puts the needs of NGOs over profits.

What you can do

• SaveDotOrg Protest 1/24 in in Playa Vista: hand-deliver over 20K signatures at the board meeting of ICANN, who must approve the sale.

• EFF @ CRASH Space with Cory Doctorow: Help Save .ORGs 1/18 in Culver City: Electronic Frontier Foundation Special Advisor, speaker, and author Cory Doctorow will talk more about why .ORG matters, and why the sale of the .ORG registry to Ethos Capital must be stopped.

• Add your organization to the letter's signatories if you represent an organization that would be impacted by this sale

• Endorse the letter as an individual

Connect with these sponsoring organizations

NTEN • EFF • SaveDotOrg • CRASH Space • Fight for the Future

The letters

ICANN is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ISOC is the Internet Society. PIR is the Public Interest Registry. They are partners in managing the whole world of website naming & hierarchy.

DNS is Domain Name System, like .com and .GT (Guatemala); .ORG is truncated from organization and was one of the original domains established in 1985.