That offer was rejected, and others followed. Proposals rolled in from the US, Canada, Japan, England, Hong Kong, Switzerland, and Australia. Realizing he was out of his depth in assessing the deals, Paeniu, who holds a master's degree in agricultural and resource economics from the University of Hawaii, asked the International Telecommunication Union to assign a consultant. Paeniu went along with the advice, Van Couvering withdrew as consultant so his company could bid on .tv, and the domain strangers started visiting Tuvalu. Paeniu approaches the promise of .tv riches warily.
Past deals involving passports and phone numbers explain why.
A few years ago, Hong Kong's Asia Pacific Telecom rented Tuvalu's unused phone numbers, resold them to offshore customers, and shared the profit with the government. The sun shone brightly on the agreement at first. Clouds appeared, though, when it became known that some of the rented numbers were being used for phone-sex lines. In a country that styles itself devoutly Christian and sports a national anthem paying extended tribute to the Almighty, the news didn't sit well. A second scheme, in which the government sells passports to Hong Kong citizens who might want to hold papers from a British Commonwealth country, has proceeded without moral taint.