icann

icann

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A regulatory body that oversees the address book of the internet has put the kibosh (at least for now) on a private equity firm's efforts to purchase control of all dot-org domains for more than $1 billion.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) said late Thursday that its board had voted to reject the proposed change in ownership, which would have impacted 10.5 million registered domain names, including Farm Aid, The Sierra Club, Amnesty International, Girl Scouts of the USA, The Associated Press and ProPublica.

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A private equity firm that's trying to purchase control of all dot-org domains for more than $1 billion said Friday that it is planning to put in place legally-binding measures to address concerns and ongoing criticisms about the deal by lawmakers, nonprofits and activists.

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Activists, nonprofits and multiple internet domain registrars are upset over what they call a sweetheart deal involving the U.S. government; VeriSign Inc., which maintains the dot-com domain; and a not-for-profit that oversees the internet's domain name system. The deal, which still needs to be signed off on, would allow an already highly-profitable public company to raise prices on website wholesalers for dot-com domains, by as much as 70% over the next decade.

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