Inside the billion-dollar battle over .Org

A group of respected internet pioneers and nonprofit leaders is offering an alternative to Ethos Capital's bid: a nonprofit cooperative corporation.

Tech News : Two months ago, Ethos Capital, a private equity firm, announced that it planned to buy the rights to a tract of internet real estate for more than $1 billion.

But it wasn’t just any piece of digital property. It was dot-org, the cyber neighborhood that is home to big nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations like the United Nations (un.org) and NPR (npr.org), and to little ones like neighborhood clubs.

The deal was met with a fierce backlash. Critics argued that a less commercial corner of the internet should not be controlled by a profit-driven private equity firm, as a matter of both principle and practice. Online petitions and letters of concern came from hundreds of organizations, thousands of individuals and four Democrats in Congress, including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Rarely has the acronym-strewn realm of internet addresses — so-called domain names — stirred such passion.

Now, a group of respected internet pioneers and nonprofit leaders is offering an alternative to Ethos Capital’s bid: a nonprofit cooperative corporation. The incorporation papers for the new entity, the Cooperative Corporation of .ORG Registrants, were filed this week in California.

The goal of the group is not only to persuade the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees internet domain names, to stop the sale. It is also to persuade ICANN to hand it the management of dot-org instead. “This is a better alternative,” said Esther Dyson, who served as the first chair of ICANN, from 1998 to 2000, and is one of seven directors of the new cooperative. “If you’re owned by private equity, your incentive is to make a profit. Our incentive is to serve and protect nonprofits and the public.”

Since 2003, dot-org has been run by the Public Interest Registry, which is controlled by the Internet Society, a nonprofit that helps develop internet standards, education programs and policy. The registry holds a contract to manage dot-org, which was renewed last year for 10 more years. With a sale to Ethos Capital, the Internet Society would gain an endowment to fund its operations and get out of the business of operating dot-org.

In buying the Public Interest Registry, Ethos Capital would acquire the rights to run dot-org and collect annual fees from the nearly 10.5 million registered dot-org names, held by both nonprofits and domain-name speculators. Those yearly fees are $10 to $20 on average, but can be far higher for big sites that buy several names to protect their brand and get added services like security against online attacks.

Facebook users need $1,000 to deactivate account for one year: Study

Facebook, with more than two billion global users, is among the social media websites that provide access at no cost.

Facebook users would require an average of more than $1,000 to deactivate their account for one year, according to a study.

The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, assessed Facebook's value to its users, in contrast to its market value or its contribution to gross domestic product.

Researchers from Tufts University in the US used a series of auctions in which people were actually paid to close their accounts for as little as one day or as long as one year.

Facebook, with more than two billion global users, is among the social media websites that provide access at no cost.

The researchers found that Facebook users would require an average of more than $1,000 to deactivate their account for one year.

"Social media, and the internet more broadly, have changed the way we live and the way we keep in touch with friends and family, but it's hard to find evidence that the internet has made us richer or more productive at work," said Jay Corrigan, a professor at Kenyon College in the US.

"We know people must derive tremendous value from Facebook or they wouldn't spend millions of hours on the site every day. The challenge is how to put a dollar value on a service people don't pay for," Corrigan said.

The researchers ran three actual auctions, including two samples of college students, a community sample, and an online sample.

Winners were paid upon proof that their membership was deactivated for the set period of time.

"Auction participants faced real financial consequences, so had an incentive to seriously consider what compensation they would want to close their accounts for a set period of time and to bid truthfully," said Sean B Cash, a professor at Tufts University.

"Students placed a higher value on Facebook than community members. A number of participants refused to bid at all, suggesting that deactivating Facebook for a year was not a welcome possibility," Cash said.

ALSO READ: Privacy issues: Here's how to delete your Facebook, Instagram profiles

The study contrasts the company's market capitalisation with the value placed on it by its users, researchers said.

For example, based on a market valuation of about $420 billion, and about 2.2 billion users, the market value of Facebook would be approximately $190 per user, or less than one-fourth of the annual average value of Facebook access from any of the auction samples, researchers said.

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India improves internet speed but still fares poorly in global rankings

In fixed broadband connections, India's rank rose four notches to 65th globally, while in mobile internet speed it fell two spots to 111^th.

Fixed broadband internet services and mobile data services in India saw some improvement in 2018 when compared with the previous year, but there may still be miles to go for the country before it ranks among the best in the world.

While India’s mobile internet speed improved marginally during the year, registering a year-on-year growth rate of 15.2 per cent, fixed broadband speed grew 50.4 per cent, according to a report by internet speed testing and analysis firm Ookla.

In November 2017, India had stood 69th and 109th in Ookla’s SpeedTest global index for fixed line broadband and mobile data, respectively. During the same period this year, the country moved up to 65th spot in fixed broadband connections with average download and upload speeds of 26.46 Mbps and 21.91, respectively. The country’s ranking in mobile data category, however, fell to 111th.

Though its ranking came down, India’s average mobile data download and upload speeds increased from 8.8 Mbps and 3.55 Mbps, respectively, in Nov 2017, to 9.93 Mbps and 3.82 Mbps in November 2018.

The report also highlighted that the world’s most populous countries — China, India, US, Indonesia and Brazil — failed to make it to the list of the fastest or most improved countries on mobile and fixed broadband. In terms of mobile data, though India ranked last, along with Indonesia, in the list of world’s most populous countries, India saw its speed improving much more quickly than Indonesia.

In terms of fixed broadband, on the other hand, India showed the biggest improvement in mean download speed (23 Mbps) among the world’s five largest countries. The report also stated that the country’s capital, New Delhi, saw a major increase (16,908 per cent) in gigabit results in 2018.

The countries with the fastest mean download speeds over mobile in 2018 were Norway (63.19 Mbps), Iceland (58.68 Mbps), Qatar (55.17 Mbps), Singapore (54.71 Mbps) and the Netherlands (53.42 Mbps).

Singapore showed the world’s fastest mean download speed over fixed broadband in 2018 at 175.13 Mbps. The next fastest were Iceland (153.03 Mbps), Hong Kong (138.31 Mbps), South Korea (114.67 Mbps) and Romania (109.90 Mbps).

Business Standard