[ga] Registrar acquisition and merger policy

["William X. Walsh" <william@userfriendly.com>]

The recent purchase of Registrars.com by Verisign, who also purchased
NameSecure.com, has made me realize that the ICANN needs to
incorporate policy documents governing acquisition policies.

I understand the motivation for Verisign, they are facing drops in
their new domain registration growth rates, and the transfer rate from
Verisign to other registrars is practically a flood.  Acquisitions
allow them to offset some of that, even if only temporarily.

I think a hard and fast policy should be create whereby if an existing
accredited registrar (or their parent company) already directly or
indirectly controls X% of the registered domain names, they should be
enjoined against further acquisitions of accredited registrars.

Enforcement actions can include:
            - Loss of accreditation (most severe)
            - Penalty fees payable to ICANN on a per domain basis
            until they come into compliance
            - 90 day warning to get into compliance. (least severe)

This would serve to bolster the principles of competition, which is
one of the guiding principles in the Green Paper, White Paper, and in
the actual DoC agreements.  It would serve to help avoid anything
resembling an attempt to become, or regain, a monopoly level position,
and ensure that there will be enough accredited registrars to provide
competitive advantages to registrants.

I'd be interested in hearing thoughts on this.

I'm sure our alt-chair will tell us to take this to ga-sys, or is it
ga-icann?  :)  Who can tell?

-- 
Best regards,
William X Walsh <william@userfriendly.com>
Userfriendly.com Domains
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