.Org no longer for sale: ISOC

Internet Society states it doesn’t plan to sell .org following ICANN rejects Ethos deal.

Internet Society (ISOC) has poured cold water on the idea that Ethos Capital might still be able to pull off a purchase of the .org top level domain.

In a post on KeyPointsAbout.org today, ISOC President and CEO Andrew Sullivan wrote:

…Now that we know that ICANN believes its remit to be much larger than we believe it is, we can state this clearly: neither PIR nor any of its operations are for sale now, and the Internet Society will resist vigorously any suggestion that they ought to be.

Public Interest Registry, the non-profit that ISOC set up to operate .org, appears also to be moving on. CEO Jon Nevett released a statement today regarding how the firm will continue to manage the top level domain.

I imagine PIR’s employees are ready to move on from the proposed sale. Industry sources told me they were “stuck” over the past six months due to the pending sale, unable to move forward with decisions they’d typically be able to make.