[ga] INTA vs ICANN comparison: ICANN spending gone wild

[George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi again,

Just to give a sense of how out of whack ICANN's spending appears, I
downloaded the most recent Form 990 for the International Trademark
Association (INTA) from Guidestar.org. Of course, one should do a
cross-section of comparable non-profits, but I don't get paid to do
this research, so this is what I came up with in a few minutes.

INTA (see www.inta.org) has a worldwide mandate, encompassing all of
trademark law.  You would think that what they do is very comparable to
ICANN. However, they are a *much* leaner organization, with annual
expenses of approximately $12.8 million, vs. ICANN who is seeking a $58
million budget:

http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-17may08-en.htm

For INTA's top 5 earning employees, it adds up to a total of $619,267.
Compare this to ICANN, where it added up to $985,568. INTA's no small
organization, either, as they reported 33 employees earning over
$50,000 (comparable to ICANN which had 37).

INTA is also headquartered in NYC, not exactly the cheapest place in
the world (i.e. has to pay aggressively to compete for quality people),
and even has 2 other offices (China, Belgium).

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.kirikos.com/