
In a move celebrated by advocacy groups across the globe as “a major victory for the millions of nonprofits, civil society organizations, and individuals who make .org their home online,” a body that oversees web addresses on Thursday blocked a takeover of the top-level domain by the private equity firm Ethos Capital. The decision by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) board to reject the $1.1 billion deal, announced in November 2019, came ahead of a May 4 deadline and followed months of mounting concerns that the takeover could lead to censorship from corporate interests, increased costs, and service issues.
…ICANN’s board explained the decision with a blog post which said in part that “after completing its evaluation, the ICANN board finds that the public interest is better served in withholding consent as a result of various factors that create unacceptable uncertainty over the future of the third largest [generic top-level domain] registry.”
Critics of the attempted private equity takeover—who came together for a global #SaveDotOrg campaign—included NGOs, tech leaders, U.S. lawmakers, and U.N. special rapporteurs. According to the tech nonprofit NTEN, which managed SaveDotOrg.org, nearly 900 groups and 64,000 individuals signed various petitions opposing the sale.