From: Norm Jacknis (norm@jacknis.com)
Date: Tue Oct 15 2002 - 23:42:36 EDT
This subject came up tonight at our monthly meeting, so I thought I would
pass this along.
Regards,
Norm
-----Original Message-----
http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-14oct02.htm
ISOC's proposal had received two earlier recommendations from the ICANN
staff during summer 2002, which drew fire from a number of competing
proposals, which alleged that there was too close a relationship
between the ICANN board and the ISOC. The ICANN board ultimately
reviewed supplemental information from all bids before reaffirming
the staff choice. Some useful reference documents include:
.org Reassignment Proposals
http://www.icann.org/tlds/org/applications/
ISOC's original proposal
http://www.icann.org/tlds/org/applications/isoc
Supplemental Questions and Answers from Applicants
http://www.icann.org/tlds/org/questions-to-applicants.htm
Final ICANN staff Recommendation Report
http://www.icann.org/tlds/org/final-evaluation-report-23sep02.htm
Applicant Responses to Final Staff Recommendation Report
http://www.icann.org/tlds/org/applicant-comments-03oct02.htm
The public also had a chance to voice its opinion on the specific
proposals via e-mail: http://forum.icann.org/org-eval
and to share its ongoing thoughts regarding the overall .org
domain reassignment process: http://forum.icann.org/org ]
ICANN Board Selects New .org Registry Operator
Marina del Rey, California USA (14 October 2002) – The Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Board of Directors
voted 11 to 1 (with three abstentions) today to select the proposal
submitted by the Internet Society (ISOC) for a new registry operator
of the .org top-level domain, to replace VeriSign.
ISOC has established a new organization, Public Interest Registry (PIR),
which will be the registry operator, subject to agreements to be
negotiated between ICANN and PIR. PIR will subcontract with Afilias,
the operator of .info – the new gTLD approved by ICANN last year – to
provide operational support. ISOC is responsible for appointing the
Board of Directors of PIR, which will otherwise operate as a
not-for-profit entity separate from ISOC.
Subject to final agreements, PIR will assume operations of the .org
registry from VeriSign on 1 January 2003. Stuart Lynn, president of
ICANN, noted "ISOC/PIR presented ICANN with a very solid transition
plan. Current registrants in .org should notice no interruption of
service."
An extensive bid solicitation and evaluation process was launched last
April. Eleven bids were received in response to a request for proposals.
These bids were analyzed and evaluated by three evaluation teams that
operated independently of each other. Lynn thanked all eleven bidders
for the excellence of their proposals and for their "commitment and
interest through a long and arduous process. It is a shame that we
cannot select all eleven, but obviously that is impossible."
As part of the evaluation, two evaluation teams focused on technical
issues: one from Gartner, Inc., an international consulting and
research organization that specializes in information technologies,
and the other a team mainly composed of CIOs of major universities that
just participated in the early stages of the evaluation. Another team
was provided by ICANN’s Non Commercial Domain Name Holders Constituency
that focused on the effectiveness of the proposals to address the
particular needs of the .org registry. Additional input came from
extensive comments by the public and the applicants themselves.
ICANN is re-assigning the .org registry under a revised agreement among
ICANN, VeriSign, and the U.S. Department of Commerce that was signed in
May 2001. Under that agreement, VeriSign was permitted to keep its
registrar business, NSI provided that it agreed to relinquish .org at
the end of December 2002, and subject to other provisions of the
revised agreements. As part of those revised agreements, VeriSign
agreed to endow the new operator with US$ 5 million to help fund
operating costs, provided that the new operator was a not-for-profit
organization.
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