-I think it's a remote one to be honest, but it's still one worth pursuing," AusRegistry's managing director of sales and marketing Adrian Kinderis told ZDNet Australia.
ICANN has issued a report recommending the non-profit Internet SOCiety (ISOC) as the leading bidder, as it received top marks in all categories assessed. -Anything that gets put before the board that is independent, like this report, is significant," Kinderis said.
AusRegistry has teamed up with UK-based Poptel to form Unity Registry to bid for the .org space. Kinderis said Unity Registry has the third strongest bid, after receiving two 'A's on the report card for the Usage Evaluation. However, the ICANN report points out that Unity fell short in the Technical Evaluation, receiving a 'B' and a 'C'.
-We think we're a lot stronger on the technical stuff," said Kinderis. However, he said AusRegistry was happy with the way it had been assessed, and its success now depended on how it responded to that assessment.
-You don't know in this game, being an international bidder might work for us or against us," said Kinderis. -We're the strongest bid outside America."
In May 2001, VeriSign signed an agreement with ICANN and the Commerce Department to relinquish control of the .org domain in exchange for keeping the rights to oversee the lucrative .com domain. ICANN has been looking for a successor to oversee .org.
ISOC is a nonprofit, nongovernmental organisation involved in standards, policy issues and educational workshops. Its members include industry bigwigs such as Microsoft and 3Com. It will run .org in conjunction with Affilias, operator of the .info domain. ISOC officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Upon learning of the proposal, some ICANN watchdogs blasted the plan, saying it amounted to an "insider deal" that will derail the .org mission of serving nonprofit organizations.
"The ISOC board is now controlled by corporations that buy memberships," Michael Froomkin, operator of ICANNwatch.org
He pointed out that ICANN has two people associated with ISOC on its board, including Chairman Vint Cerf, a former head of the organization, and Alejandro Pisantry, ICANN's vice chair and chair of ISOC-Mexico.
The proposal for ISOC to take over .org is still open for public input.
