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Comment by ddevault | Hacker News Reader

IRS Form 13909 can be used to submit complaints about non-profit organizations to the IRS. Here are two pre-filled Form 13909's, one for ICANN and one for ISOC. Just print it out, add your personal information to both, and mail it to the address listed on the bottom of the form.

https://yukari.sr.ht/dotorg-form-13909.pdf

Alternatively, this file can be opened with LibreOffice Draw to make edits and prepare your document digitally:

https://yukari.sr.ht/dotorg-form-13909.odg

lodraw crash course: F2 + click drag to make a new text box, Ctrl+[ to reduce the font size to something reasonable, red icon in the toolbar along the top to export as PDF. You can send the document by email to eoclass@irs.gov.

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I’m doing this! Both for PIR and ICANN.

Please see my other comment on this thread. It is likely this “sale” could be considered illegal.

Here is the information for ICANN which can be used for the above form as well:

https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/fy18-irs-tax-for...

Remember that the founder of this PE firm was at ICANN, so this transaction is self-dealing on ICANN’s end as well.

Thanks for the ICANN info, I'll prepare a similar form for them. Do you have some resources I can use to summarize ICANN's questionable activities?

The former CEO of ICANN basically started the PE firm PIR was “sold” to:

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2019/11/isoc-pir-...

ICANN, by lifting the price restriction, was likely “in” on this deal.

When a nonprofit does something to greatly enrich a former CEO, that’s likely self dealing and illegal in the IRS’ eyes. The CA attorney general should also take action (ICANN is CA based).

Thanks for this.

Additionally, it might be beneficial for folks to file complaints with the Washington, D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs [1], since the Internet Society is incorporated in D.C., and with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services [2], since its principle place of business is Virginia and is registered as a foreign corporation there.

[1] https://dcra.dc.gov/ [2] http://www.vdacs.virginia.gov/about-agency-directory.shtml

I also wrote this letter to the Attorneys General of VA and CA:

https://yukari.sr.ht/ag-letter.pdf

>The Internet Society is tasked with protecting the interests of the internet names registry, among other things. They have removed price limits on “.org”,

It was ICANN which approved contract removing price limits, not Internet Society. (of course probably all of ICANN/ISOC/PIR/Ethos were involved in the deal, but anyway this statement is incorrect)

I wonder how effective these copy-pasted mass complaints to organizations/politicians/etc. are. It seems to be just waste of time, it's not that receiving same mail X times gives additional information?

The mass complaints work very well when backed by an organized effort to lobby, press attention, etc. There are people vulnerable to political and social pressure who make decisions based on this stuff, e.g. the CA attorney general (in the case of ICANN)

PIR is abandoning its nonprofit status anyways, to become B corporation instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Interest_Registry

They are becoming a company, but they haven't committed to become a B Corp. only to "explore" the certification. Like I "explore" using my phone less. ;)

Also becoming a B corp is different from getting the certification. the latter is just a reporting standard.

Bcorp doesn’t mean much. Add some stuff to the bylaws. Doesn’t mean they actually have to follow them. The Honest Company is a BCorp and still had multiple class actions against it and hundreds of FTC complaints.

You can also just stop being one when it becomes inconvenient. That's what Etsy did.

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