Powerful internet authority says it’s powerless to stop billion dollar .org takeover

The private equity takeover of one of the internet’s biggest domain name extensions is growing more convoluted by the day.

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the organization empowered to manage the internet’s domain name system, has said it will not stop the sale of the .org top level domain (TLD) extension from a nonprofit to a private equity firm. 

In a statement to the Financial Times, ICANN says that it "does not have authority over the proposed acquisition" and that its role is to simply "assure the continued operation of the .org domain."

On Friday, the sale price of the .org extension to the private equity firm, Ethos Capital, was disclosed: $1.135 billion. Read more...