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Looks like Russian-style "privatization" has finally come to America!

It's the opposite. Iirc, icann was a semi gov entity and everybody complained that the internet is effectively controlled by the US gov via ICANN. So the gov decided to yield and give ICANN freedom. Sure enough, icann was quickly captured by pirates.

I was referring to the original sellout of USSR institutions during the '90s: as the world pushed the Soviets to renounce public ownership, they sold off massive assets at fire-sale prices to well-connected profiteers.

Here, .org had certain restrictions that made its governance somewhat "public". Those restrictions were removed and the asset was hurriedly sold, at a debatable price, to well-connected profiteers. Looks very similar to me.

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