[Closi]

Google will have paid ICANN $500k just to read the application for these TLD's ($185k * 3) and has paid them an additional $500k since then just to maintain them.

I'm not wholly convinced that ICANN is operating solely out of a sense of generosity. It sounds to me more like "pay me a lot of money and I will look after you" (i.e. a protection racket). I suspect ICANN is actually motivated to look after google as a high-paying customer and registrar, rather than be what they should be, which is acting independent, treating everyone the same, and not just using everything as an opportunity to cash-grab.

[dmingod666]

TBF, 500k + 500k for controlling 3 TLDs (333k/TLD) is not a lot of money. For Google it's a rounding error.

[Closi]

When you sell 1,200 TLDs it ends up being good money.

ICANN manage to make $200 million a year for just managing a database of 300 million value key pairs and 1200 tlds.

[hetspookjee]

It sometimes is astounding how cheap bribery can be, right?