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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
One week after the news the non-profit .org internet registry was to be sold to a private equity firm, the board of the organization that has to approve the purchase met in private to discuss the situation.
Four days later, on November 21, that organization – ICANN – has yet to say a word about what it discussed or decided.
This past weekend, the board of the organization that is selling the rights to .org, and which will likely make $1bn or more from the sale, the Internet Society, met. On both the Saturday and Sunday, the proposed sale was a key topic of conversation. It has just to provide any details on what was discussed or decided.
The same cannot be said for those opposed to the deal.
One of the earliest indicators that the deal was going to meet a very different response from the internet community than the Internet Society (ISOC) expected came in the form of an article written by one person who has set up and run their own registry.
Co-founder of the .eco top-level domain Jacob Malthouse wrote an impassioned plea online that began, “I woke up this morning feeling a profound sense of loss.” An environmental campaigner as well as a former staffer of ICANN, Malthouse compared the sale of the .org registry to the paving over of forests.
The proudly non-profit .org registry, that had for years sold its domains for just $1 to non-profits in developing countries, is “our Yosemite,” Malthouse opined, referring to America's world-famous national park. In selling it to a for-profit private equity firm, he argued, “we’ve lost more than a digital Yosemite. We’ve lost our principles. We can do better. The millions of nonprofits who rely on .org deserve better.”
That sentiment was quickly echoed in the broader internet industry community, which, even in the era of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, continues to rely on mailing lists as its main form of communication.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by pdfernhout on Thursday November 28 2019, @03:09AM (1 child)
https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/private-foundations/acts-of-self-dealing-by-private-foundation [irs.gov]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-dealing [wikipedia.org]
"Self-dealing is the conduct of a trustee, attorney, corporate officer, or other fiduciary that consists of taking advantage of their position in a transaction and acting in his own interests rather than in the interests of the beneficiaries of the trust, corporate shareholders, or their clients. According to the political scientist Andrew Stark, "[i]n self-dealing, an officeholder's official role allows her to affect one or more of her own personal interests." It is a form of conflict of interest. Self-dealing may involve misappropriation or usurpation of corporate assets or opportunities. Political scientists Ken Kernaghan and John Langford define self-dealing as "a situation where one takes an action in an official capacity which involves dealing with oneself in a private capacity and which confers a benefit on oneself." Examples include "work[ing] for government and us[ing] your official position to secure a contract for a private consulting company you own" or "using your government position to get a summer job for your daughter." Where a fiduciary has engaged in self-dealing, this constitutes a breach of the fiduciary relationship. The principal of that fiduciary (the person to whom duties are owed) may sue and both recover the principal's lost profits and disgorge the fiduciary's wrongful profits. Repeated self-dealing by a private foundation can result in the involuntary termination of its tax-exempt status."
Is this a case of it?
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 28 2019, @11:33AM
The Orange One is still not in jail. So no, there is no case for it.