Hacker News Reader

Comment by romaaeterna | Hacker News Reader

If this is really the case, someone(s) very possibly took and gave bribes, and we're going to see Federal scrutiny all over this.

View on HN

No, we won't. Not unless you help set that in motion. Have you contacted the DA already?

Note that in the U.S., district attorneys are normally the prosecutors at the state court level. At the Federal level, most prosecutors are "U.S. attorneys" or "assistant U.S. attorneys".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_attorney

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Attorney

Right, so: the DA. Because as incredible as this is: neither ICANN nor ISOC are controlled or run by the federal government.

As much as people think that the organization that oversees internet naming must be federal (because how could it not be, they control stuff for the ENTIRE COUNTRY AND BEYOND), both ICANN and ISOC are literally just private industry non-profit organisations, like any other 501c3. If you want to sue them, or you want them sued by government, you're going to have to contact the DA for the state(s) they are registered in.

The reason that I mentioned the distinction was that you suggested contacting DAs in response to romaaeterna's prediction that "we're going to see Federal scrutiny". Contacting DAs might be the most appropriate way to handle a problem, but in itself it probably won't lead to Federal scrutiny of that problem.

Unless you found a loophole that allows the federal government to even form an opinion on this matter before it reaches federal courts, a non-profit selling its asset is a matter of state law first, and transgressions or questionable ethics are a matter of state investigation, not federal.

As insane as that might seem for something as far-reaching as "the ownership of the .org top level domain".

The US has done a fantastic job of legalizing its bribes. It's not bribery! It's lobbying! It's not corruption, it just happens to be that the guy in charge of the agency for co-ordinating economic policy is also the head of Goldman Sachs. It's not corruption, because we made it legal and so it can't be corruption, because we've redefined corruption. It's great!

This is one of the reasons why people around the world are a little sceptical of American exceptionalism.

This!

I can't believe ANY possible explanation (not even incompetency in this case) except direct or indirect bribery.

Really sad to see more and more of theses cases where Non-Profits sell out (e.g. OpenAI), I wonder whether this is a byproduct of people sozialized in the age of hyper-capitalism and consumerism...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com