Opponents of private company Ethos Capital’s transaction to acquire the Public Interest Registry (PIR), which manages the gTLD .ORG, has found a new reason why ICANN should refuse to approve the deal or at least postpone it. The reason is the pandemic of diseases caused by the 2019-nCoV coronavirus. ICANN is to make its decision before March 20, and human rights defenders have several arguments in favor of why the virus can and should become an obstacle.
According to Peter Micek, general counsel for Access Now human rights organization, .ORG is used for sites of a huge number of organizations that provide important information about the disease, its spread and methods of prevention – from Wikipedia and Médecins Sans Frontières to many hospitals and research centers. And the transfer of PIR to private hands will almost inevitably lead to higher prices in the domain zone, which may cause the closure of information resources that are extremely important during the pandemic. Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth points out that while PIR remains under the control of the Internet Society, it can withstand any censorship attempt. Its sale will potentially allow China to use the economic leverage on Ethos Capital to avoid the spread of unwanted information about the 2019-nCoV (as we know, China is the “homeland” of the coronavirus). Finally, representative of Transparency International Daniel Eriksson, simply believes that the transaction cannot be approved now, because during the pandemic, public attention is focused on more pressing issues, and there is a risk of missing some important circumstances.
With all due respect to the advocates of maintaining the status of PIR as a non-profit organization, it is worth recognizing that their current actions look very much like speculation, and the arguments do not hold water, Domain Incite notes. For example, the information on selling PIR was officially published more than a month before the first news about the coronavirus. Since then, the deal has remained the subject of almost daily discussions, and it is at least incorrect to say that it is being rushed through amid general concern about the pandemic. The argument regarding Chinese influence is not quite clear, either. Ethos Capital is acquiring the registry for more than a billion US dollars. It is hard to imagine just how much the Chinese authorities should pay to force the future PIR owners to hide some information about the coronavirus. And, most importantly, it is unclear why China should pay to cover up this information? China has already been hit by the pandemic harder than other countries and is unlikely to be interested in hiding any data that would help defeat the disease. As for price hikes in the domain zone, Ethos Capital has already volunteered to introduce some restrictions. In accordance with them, the price of domain name registration during the first year cannot increase by more than $0.97. And although any price increase is unpleasant in itself, it can hardly be said that this amount will ruin Wikipedia, Médecins Sans Frontières, or some of the medical and research centers.
