Ok, Read the story/read the comments - the 1.135 billion $USD got my attention. First "WTF?" was same as "corndoge": Who the hell is "The Internet Society?" Lotta reading... and then the penny hit the floor: "Ah! A bunch of clever boys in Cali got the US gov. to give them admin. of the ".org" domain name that folks used if they hacked/outbid/cheatedoutof their .com TLD? (I lost mine to Serbian jewel thieves..) It became the PIR, and the guys running it got to drop the $ from registrations into a non-profit, and claim administrator salaries, board seats, nice Cali. offices, and all the perks. But their was both risk and work involved, and the non-profit status, meant they cculdn't pocket profits and make a big score. But along comes this idea: They can flog the ".org" registry, and its recurring revenue-stream, to a "for-profit" entity that a couple of insiders create just for this purpose. "Whoopdedo" notes that dns data indicates each user of .org is valued at about $135. Based on telco and cable company purchases, that valuation per subscriber looks about right. The two insiders take the valuation data to moneyboys, and suggest that the rev. stream can be jacked maybe 10% per year, best case. The moneyguys agree to fund the deal into the 10 digit range, and the project gets the greenlight. The plan offers "The Internet Society" a massive payday, which as even their own pressnotes say, will give them the same revenue, but without having to do any work, deal with actual users, or take any operational or legal risk of any kind. As another users suggests - They can "raise awareness" from nice Cali. offices, and then break for lunch.

But the whole deal smells a bit of sulfur and hotwind, no?

Or did I miss something? How did the "Internet Society" get its "ownership" of the .org TLD registry? Did they buy it? If they bought it, then for how much? From my understanding, they just got given it, by the US Gov't., with a mandate to run it at cost, more or less.

So, as some suggest, there is a risk that the $1.1 billion could be considered a pure profit - which would seem to put their non-profit status at risk.

Also, by selling the very thing they were established to administer, that should maybe terminate their mandate, and one might also argue that the $1.1 billion represents funds that belong to existing .org registrants, and should be refunded to them all.

The "Internet Society" is not a for-profit corporation, right? So where do they get off by just wrapping up their administrator-role in a big package, and selling - without any bidding process even - to a couple of folks who promise to maybe raise the user-fees by 5 times the rate of inflation for the next few years?

How do "Board Members" of the "Internet Society" actually get to become "Board Members" of the "Internet Society"? Who appoints them? Shareholders? Not likely.

The note from the "Barnes" fellow is interesting. He was the "Security" guy at Cisco, apparently. Now, those guys at Cisco, I've heard of them. They sell all those American-designed routers that beacon all their traffic and meta-data back to the NSA servers. I'm sure that's a fine thing to do, as it keeps us safe from bad guys.

But when I look at the details of this proposed deal, I start to wonder who the "bad guys" really are.

I have an alternate "deal" idea: Fire all the "Board Members" of "The Internet Society". Tell them "Thank you for your contribution." and send them home. Replace them all with different folks who might be expected to have a better understanding of what their role should be. Just an idea. And it won't cost $1.135 billion USD. And it won't require the .org domain be re-priced.