Commission Practice Has Fund Investors on Lookout for Conflicts

As recently as a few months ago, the ING Internet fund would have been a surefire attention-getter just because of its focus on Internet stocks.

But Net stocks have cooled, the number of Internet funds has mushroomed and ING's funds group, a division of ING Groep (ING Quote) of the Netherlands, has neither a well-known brand name nor a high-profile manager to make its broker-sold fund stand out from the crowd.

But it does have a weapon: ING is offering to boost the normal industry commission to brokers who sell the fund to their clients. ...