Re: [ga] Comparison

[George Kirikos <gkirikos@yahoo.com>]

Hello Jess,

--- JessWest@aol.com wrote:
>  George Kirikos wrote;
> <<In the end it
> would seem to lead (at least in one path) to a real-estate type
> model,
> where registrars are more like Real Estate brokers and trustees,
> getting commissions on sales and thus enhancing the allocational
> efficiency. >>
> 
> I do not see how any comparison can be made.  First of all the sites
> are NOT 
> owned by Verisign nor Icann, even tho they seem to think they have a
> monoply
> over them.   RE brokers are contracted by individual property owners.

I wasn't comparing the current situation in the domain industry to real
estate, by all means. What I was doing was following the line of
reasoning in Elliot Noss' post, and seeing where it led in terms of
future hypothetical models. I agree with you completely as to how
things are now, and wouldn't want Verisign, Registrars or ICANN to have
the power/ownership (more power to registrants/consumers!).

> << That would obviously be a radical change from what exists
> today. There's no empirical evidence that the amount of turnover in
> the
> secondary market could keep all the registrars in business, either,
> in
> that real-estate type model. Registrars depend on thr "on going"
> registration cash flow to stay alive; moving to a system where all
> the
> fees are mostly up front be quite a shock. It might also enhance the
> Verisign monopoly, or at least magnify monopolistic concerns at many
> levels, which is a bad thing.>>
> 
> Network Solutions has had  anti-trust charges against them before and
> it is 
> probably just a matter of time before Verisign (which owns NSI) will
> face the 
> same charges.  In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if there isn't
> eventually an 
> investigation on stock manipulation, insider trading and price
> fixing.

Now that the case of the US vs. Microsoft is nearly over, I imagine
Verisign would be one of the places regulators might wish to dig
around, given the complaints we've seen about trying to monopolize
markets, or leveraging the monopoly in one segment (domain name
registry services) to try to take over related markets. There are
parallels to the Windows/Internet Explorer matter, and its impact on
Netscape, or how Microsoft forces its distributors (computer
manufacturers) to setup Windows in a certain restrictive manner,
thwarting competition and giving it an inside advantage.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.kirikos.com/

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail!
http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/
--
This message was passed to you via the ga-full@dnso.org list.
Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga-full" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html