I finally found the 'OFFICIAL' (well, straight from the horse's mouth) stuff from
ICANN about .ORG being *ONLY* for non-profit organizations and that we get 1 renewal
period.I knew I had seen it somewhere.
This is now officially NOT a rumor.
This info was 'officially' proposed. Not official policy yet. Not officially
decided yet. But officially proposed among themselves. And officially
posted on ICANN's own web site. (Naturally the last place I looked...[sign])
http://www.icann.org/nsi/sclavos-letter-28feb01.htm
Notice
that it does use "... global universe of non-profit organizations". This means
it does indeed exclude individuals. It also later uses "non-commercial entities",
which confuses things and shows a bit of fuzziness on their own part. But none
the less, in at least one part, it does use "non-profit organizations". (Nor
does it mention how they'd decide whther it was non-profit or commercial. If
you want to nit-pick, something as minor as web ads could be considered commercial.)
This
is definetly an early letter, but it's enough.
Quote***
We would agree to terminate
our operation of the registry for .org on December 31, 2002 and to cooperate with
ICANN in transitioning .org to management by a new, non-profit organization representing
the global universe of non-profit organizations. Among the issues to be determined
in this transition is whether .org should be limited to registrations only by non-commercial
entities, and if so, what transition arrangements need to be established for those
existing registrants that would not qualify under that limitation. ICANN has agreed
that, at a minimum, existing registrants would be permitted to remain in the new
.org registry for one renewal cycle under its new management. In addition, and as
another part of the transition process, all ICANN-accredited registrars would continue
to be permitted to register qualifying names in the .org TLD for three years after
termination of our operation of the .org registry, during which period the new registry
could develop whatever registration policies for the future it thought appropriate.
Our objective is to provide a permanent and affordable home on the Internet for the
non-profit sector and in so doing make a major effort to close the digital divide
on a worldwide scale. To see this through, we also would agree to support the new
non-profit .org registry operator, and provide it with a contribution of $5 million
that would be used for an endowment to help cover its operating expenses. Further,
we also agree to make available to the party designated by ICANN as successor operator
of the .org registry the use of global resolution and distribution facilities at
no charge for one year.
End Quote***
Plus, of course, the proposed .org agreement
itself. Which has a number of sections that are suspiciously "deliberately
left blank".
http://www.icann.org/nsi/proposed-org-registry-agmt-01mar01.htm
I
know there's more. I just can't find it yet...
There's enough for you to
go back to your friends at ZDNet and tell them that it's now officially not a rumor....
It's
not officially decided yet, etc. etc. etc. But they are discussing it among
themselves. That's enough for us to be concerned.
I'll see if I can find
more. If anybody else finds anything, feel free to post it....