ICANN loses $4.6 million of your money in the stock market

**GeorgeK** · 02-05-2009, 03:54 PM

ICANN has lost $4.6 million of your money in the stock market, see:

http://www.circleid.com/posts/200902..._stock_market/

http://www.thedomains.com/2009/02/03...-stock-market/

Someone needs to be held accountable.

**myst woman** · 02-05-2009, 06:49 PM

Holy dotcom batman.

Couldnt they have found something less volatile like...domai names to invest in???

**Yusio** · 02-05-2009, 06:50 PM

Originally Posted by myst woman

Holy dotcom batman.

Couldnt they have found something less volatile like...domai names to invest in???

Why would they invest with that many in the first place? They isn't ICANN an organization, not a business? That wasn't their money to spend. That's like opening up a cancer charity and using money received for cancer research to invest in the stock market.

**BELLC1** · 02-05-2009, 06:57 PM

They could have used Fidelity. They lost 56.2% of my retirement.

**cursal** · 02-05-2009, 07:18 PM

Agreed something should be done, but what?

A scapegoat to nail would at least give pause the next time they think of doing something like this, and nobody at ICANN has spoken up saying they won't (not to my knowledge), but what about the $4,600,000.

Who gets reimbursed? and how?

*edit -Maybe a Mandatory Management change?

**GeorgeK** · 02-05-2009, 07:19 PM

ICANN's CFO did post a comment at the CircleID thread (if you scroll down below the article for all the comments). I think it demonstrated their faulty policy, as they were looking at 5-year horizon, which is inappropriate for an emergency reserve fund.

**TheLegendaryJP** · 02-05-2009, 07:21 PM

I think it demonstrated their faulty policy, as they were looking at 5-year horizon, which is inappropriate for an emergency reserve fund.

Statistics show 80%+ of what we worry about never happens, maybe they are planning based on this lol

**RTM.net** · 02-05-2009, 08:12 PM

Actually, charitable organisations and trusts and public organisations DO invest their funds like any other company. Go check out the list of 13,000 people / organizations taken in the Madoff scandal... there are wealthy folks for sure, but there are also health care institutions, charitable foundations and the like.

Any entity with liquid assets will want to make investments to have their assets grow. It boils down to making the most judicious choice of investment strategies based on the financial priorities at hand...

That's where things get icky for organisations such as ICANN...

ICANN would have done better investing in domains

IMHO, of course

Sigh - meltdown news.

**GeorgeK** · 02-05-2009, 08:46 PM

RTM: There's a big difference in how one invests an endowment, versus how one invests emergency reserve funds. See the comments of the CircleID article for broader discussion of that important point.

If the funds were not for an emergency, then they should have been returned to domain registrants.

**Gerry** · 02-05-2009, 08:56 PM

George, I had no idea I had been reading your columns and your blogs.

Very nice!

**HuntingMoon** · 02-05-2009, 09:31 PM

this is a black eye for sure.

**Acro** · 02-05-2009, 09:36 PM

Poor ICANN. Gambled the funds and lost it. I guess they will now have to raise their domain fees for additional "Internet infrastructure".

**GeorgeK** · 02-05-2009, 10:11 PM

Doc Com: CircleID is not my blog. That article was from John Levine, although I provided him with some of the background information after Danny Younger broke the initial story of the $4.6 million loss on the ICANN GNSO GA mailing list, see

http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/ga-200709/ (starting from Feb 2, 2009, and since then)

I've contributed a few submissions to CircleID in the past, though (and added my own comments to this story).

**Gerry** · 02-05-2009, 10:14 PM

Originally Posted by GeorgeK

Doc Com: CircleID is not my blog. That article was from John Levine, although I provided him with some of the background information after Danny Younger broke the initial story of the $4.6 million loss on the ICANN GNSO GA mailing list, see

http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/ga-200709/ (starting from Feb 2, 2009, and since then)

I've contributed a few submissions to CircleID in the past, though (and added my own comments to this story).

Sorry, meant to clarify...

I had read the open letter http://forum.icann.org/lists/gtld-guide/msg00026.html and was very impressed.

I think I read this last night or the night before.

So much news coming out from so many sources.

Sometimes all of this press is not a good thing.

**Banned: theinvestor** · 02-05-2009, 10:16 PM

So when is the bailout ?

**Gerry** · 02-05-2009, 10:18 PM

Originally Posted by theinvestor

So when is the bailout ?

When did you last register a domain and pay the ICANN fee?

**Meridian66** · 02-05-2009, 10:56 PM

Originally Posted by GeorgeK

RTM: There's a big difference in how one invests an endowment, versus how one invests emergency reserve funds.

Exactly! You never EVER invest emergency funds in a risky investment vehicle like the stock market. You invest it in safe (government-backed) liquid cash-based instruments.

If this loss truly comes from the emergency funds, then it borders on criminal incompetence. Or maybe some sort of corruption and kick backs to directors that have not yet come to light.