User:Neville at Internet Society/Internet Society

The Internet Society (ISOC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1992 and incorporated in the U.S. It provides leadership in Internet-related standards, education, access, and policy. Its mission is to support and promote "the development of the Internet as a global technical infrastructure, a resource to enrich people’s lives, and a force for good in society". The organization's main offices are in Reston, Virginia and Geneva, Switzerland. Its vision is "The Internet is for Everyone".

Organization
The Internet Society has regional bureaus worldwide. The Internet Society comprises chapters, organizational members, and, as of July 2020, more than 70,000 individual members. The Internet Society has staff of more than 100 and is governed by a Board of Trustees, whose members are appointed or elected by the society's chapters, organization members, and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The IETF comprises the Internet Society's volunteer base. Its leadership includes Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Gonzalo Camarillo; and President and CEO, Andrew Sullivan.

The Internet Society created the Public Interest Registry (PIR), launched the Internet Hall of Fame, and serves as the organizational home of the IETF. The Internet Society Foundation is its philanthropic arm.

Activities
In the late 1990s, the Internet Society established the Jonathan B. Postel Service Award. It has been presented every year to honor a person who has made outstanding contributions in service to the data communications community.

The Internet Society's activities include MANRS (Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security), launched in 2014 to provide crucial fixes to reduce the most common threats to the Internet's routing infrastructure.

The society organizes the Africa Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF) to help grow the Internet infrastructure in Africa and hosts Internet development conferences in developing markets.

The society offers Deploy360, an information hub, portal and training program to promote IPv6 and DNSSEC.

In 2017 it launched an annual Indigenous Connectivity Summit to connect tribal communities, starting with an event in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In subsequent years the event has been held in Inuvik, NWT, and Hilo, Hawaii.

The society publishes reports on global Internet issues, and creates tools, surveys, codes, and policy recommendations to improve Internet use. The society supports projects to build community networks and infrastructure, secure routing protocols, and advocate for end-to-end encryption.

History
In 1992 Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn and Lyman Chapin announced the formation of the Internet Society as "a professional society to facilitate, support, and promote the evolution and growth of the Internet as a global research communications infrastructure," which would incorporate the Internet Activities Board (IAB), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), plus the organization of the annual INET meetings. This arrangement was formalized in RFC1602 in 1993.

In 2002, the Internet Society successfully bid for the .org registry and formed the Public Interest Registry, to manage and operate it in conjunction with Afilias, a domain name registry.

On June 8, 2011, the Internet Society mounted World IPv6 Day to test IPv6 deployment. In 2012, on the Internet Society's 20th anniversary, it established the Internet Hall of Fame, an award to publicly recognize those who made significant contributions to the development and advancement of the Internet.

Following the success of World IPv6 Day in 2011, on June 6, 2012 the Internet Society organized the World IPv6 Launch, this time with the intention of leaving IPv6 permanently enabled on all participating sites.

In December 2017, the Internet Society acquired the Online Trust Alliance (OTA), the standards body that produces an annual Online Trust Audit, a Cyber Incident Response Guide, and an Internet of Things (IoT) Trust Framework.

In January 2018, the New York Times reported on an Internet Society community network project to increase access to the Internet in the Caucasus Mountains. Also in 2018, the Internet Society partnered with Facebook to create Internet exchange points in an effort to increase Internet access across continental Africa.

In 2019, the society launched the MANRS Observatory to provide statistics related to routing security and compliance with the MANRS norms. By May 2020, the initiative included more than 500 Network Operators, IXPs, CDN and Cloud providers worldwide.

Proposed sale of Public Interest Registry
In 2019 the Internet Society agreed to the potential acquisition of Public Interest Registry by Ethos Capital for $1.135 billion. The transaction was initially expected to be completed in early 2020. As part of the proposed acquisition, the registry's managers would have remained in place. The Internet Society said it planned to use the proceeds to fund an endowment-like mechanism.

The sale was met with significant opposition, since it involved the transfer of what is viewed as a public asset to a private equity investment firm. On January 30th, 2020, ICANN halted its final approval of the sale after the Attorney General of California requested detailed documentation from all parties, citing concerns that both ICANN and the Internet Society had potentially violated their public interest missions as registered charities subject to the laws of California. In February, the Internet Society's Chapter Advisory Council (which represents its membership) began the process to adopt a motion rejecting the sale if certain conditions were not complied with. On April 30th, 2020, ICANN rejected the proposal to sell PIR to Ethos Capital, effectively ending the proposed deal. Following the decision, Internet Society President and CEO Andrew Sullivan said PIR nor any of its operations are for sale now.