US senators ask ICANN again to reject .org sale

Five US senators have sent a letter to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) asking the organisation to ‘block the proposed change of control of the .org registry’. The letter is a follow-up to a similar request sent in January 2020. The senators argue, among others, that Ethos and the Public Interest Registry (PIR) have not been transparent about who is behind the sale nor about their business plan. Moreover, they say that Ethos’ commitment to limit pricing increases is weak, and that the proposed Stewardship Council ‘would be toothless’. ICANN is therefore asked to reject the .org sale because it ‘is against the public interest and would violate ICANN’s commitment to “preserve and enhance […] the operational stability, reliability, security […] and openness of the DNS and the Internet” ‘.