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Republican Senators Express Concern Over Renewall of ICANN Contracts With DoC
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I agree that letting VRSN do things like WLS in the current climate will be harmful to competition in the registrar market. But let's not lose sight of why that is: because competition in the registry market is stifled by ICANN. There's something wrong with a body like ICANN exercising price regulatory powers at all -- it has no economic expertise, and even less legitimacy, relevant to the task. And justifying this great error as being necessary due to ICANN's earlier and continuing errors just won't cut it.
This is the classic case of 'two wrongs do not make a right'. And let's not forget the lack of economic expertise. This is a key pragmatic point as well as one of principle.
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Re: My own take
by michael
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I don't disagree. But the Senators would put the cart before the horse. If the goal is to remove ICANN from having a role in registry-level pricing, then the first step is to open the market widely for increased registry-level competition. Verisign would push this in a different direction though: artificially constrain the number of registry operators and allow those few who are allowed to enter the market to do whatever they will. You've got to undo the first wrong before you undo the second.
-- Bret
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Good points, but... 1. I don't think some in the USG wanted to get a grip on their contractor. 2. While you make compelling arguments, I don't think that the assertion that more TLDs, more registries, and more entries in the root zone file are the answer is demonstrably false. What if there had been no Sunrise for example? What if the widespread fraud that went on in both .biz and .info hadn't happened. If I pay close attention and can't understand what .biz 2b and .info LR2 are, how can the average registrant? What if there had been no Smiley .biz lawsuit? What if there had been no widespread and still ongoing gaming of both .info and .biz, or if it hadn't been widely publicized? I've played a role in that one and it's troubling that one thing that does is benefit VeriSign, it's almost enough to make me shut up. What if ICANN had given IOD's .web the OK? Or other applicants, either instead of, or in addition to, current ones? What if ICANN hadn't taken so long to act? Or micro-managed the process? What if ICANN had acted when it was clear that some registrars were (and still are) warehousing many of the most desirable names? Well, with all these questions and more, I think the only thing that is demonstrably false is that ICANN was competent to be picked as manager of this process. -g
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these are good comments. I think the first fallacy is that launching a new registry is a race to 25 million registrations that, if one goes back and looks at the flavor of both the biz and info application projections, was something they each were banking upon happening in short order, or certainly faster than what has occurred.
This is different than saying that a great many TLD's entered into the market place will not have a material effect upon current .com market share and its overall dominance. Not that this has to happen in year 1 or year 2, or even by year 5. It is not logical to expect, in a couple of years, for one or two TLD's to overcome the vast headstart .com has had in the market place. But 150 TLD's times just 100,000 registrations each is roughly 70% of current .com market share. And, this assumes a one for one trade where, in all likelihood, a fair percentage will come from new users that have not registered in any of the existing TLD's.
It is reasonable to say that just 150 TLD's over 10 years would have quite a material effect upon .com dominance even with very conservative second level projections of 100,000 each (with varying wholesale pricing models). Even with the conservative projections calling for the number of people with Internet access to double from today to 1 billion over the next 10 years, it is unlikely that there will ever be a repeat of the .com phenomenon for obvious reasons. This has always been the fallacy (to me) but is not the same as saying that numerous TLD's - building niche purposes in the market place - would not have the same effect. That is the idea, I believe, and I do not think biz and info have disproved this.
Lastly, there is always the thought that the operators of the .com registry will continually look to improve their service offerings to retain market share and that all these other new registry operators will do the same. How many people remember the arcane process of updating name servers for a domain prior to competition at the registRAR level? Would Verisign have upgraded this service without competition? And this is really an insignificant example...we really do not know what has been artificially restrained in terms of service and innovation at the TLD addressing level. I think, if given the chance, there is far greater opportunity for market penetration than just putting together a string and turning on the lights. Only .com, for the foreseeable future, will be absolved of having to "build" a market need. This is not the same as saying that market needs do not exist, will increase to exist in the future, and that these cannot be identified and served. The only thing stopping this are restraints completely artificial in nature.
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