[523] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: ANS Acceptable Use Policy
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Kent England)
Fri Apr 5 03:48:16 1991
From: kwe@bu-it.bu.edu (Kent England)
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 91 11:00:41 -0500
To: stev@ftp.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
> ... so, does this imply that ANSnet and the NFSnet are
> different things? i was under the impression from the ANS people that
> they are going to be allowing commercial <-> commercial traffic over
> the ANSnet. but they also imply that the ANSnet backbone is the same
> T3 network as the NSFnet backbone.
>
If ANS can successfully distinguish different flavors of
traffic they can build a single physical infrastructure that will
support multiple logical networks. So, ANSnet and NSFnet can be
different networks. But right now it seems clear that ANS
distinguishes at least three categories of traffic:
appropriate to NSFnet
appropriate to ANSnet
"crass" commercial and inappropriate for NSFnet and ANSnet
The big question is "If traffic type is a spectrum, how wide
are the bands?" :-)
> i also was under the impression that there were tax implications in a
> not-for-profit entity engaging in competition with commercial
> enterprises
It is my understanding that the IRS rules on the tax exempt
status of corporations independently of their corporate classification
(for-profit, not-for-profit public charity, not-for-profit trade
association). Not-for-profits are obliged to pay taxes on commercial
activity, no matter how little they conduct, but once they exceed a
certain fuzzy threshold commonly believed to be in the range of
10-30%, the IRS might revoke their tax exempt status. So
not-for-profits have to be careful when they dabble in commercial
enterprise.
One common technique for keeping the books straight is for the
not-for-profit to spin off a for-profit subsidiary. That seems to
make the IRS happy.
--Kent
