https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200430/21491244419/icann-board-blocks-sale-org-registry.shtml

Last fall, we wrote about what appeared to be many of the sketchy details between the non-profit Internet Society (ISOC) agreeing to sell off the non-profit Public Interesty Registry (PIR), which runs the .org top level domain registry, to the very much for-profit private equity firm, Ethos Capital, which had recently been formed, and involved a bunch ex-ICANN execs and other internet registry folks. Even if the deal made perfect sense, there was a lot of questionable issues raised concerning who was involved, whether or not there was self-dealing, and how transparent the whole thing was. On the flipside, a number of very smart people I know and respect -- including some who worked for ISOC, insisted that the deal not only made sense, but was good for the future of the .org domain and the wider internet. In January, we had a long podcast with Mike Godwin, who is on the board of ISOC and voted for the deal, debating whether or not the deal made sense.

In the intervening months, many people and organizations had petitioned ICANN to block the deal, and ICANN had repeatedly delayed its vote -- with the last day coming a few weeks ago right after California's Attorney General, Xavier Becerra, sent a pretty scathing letter about the deal.