[ga] Contact points to prevent monopolistic WLS

["Mike Mann /BuyDomains.com" <mike@buydomains.com>]

Below are the people and organizations that should be contacted if you are 
sick of being abused by NSI/Verisign's monopoly power. Most are paid with 
your tax dollars. Please notice commentary far below.

1. ICANN- Stuart Lynn, CEO: email lynn@icann.org and comment at 
http://forum.icann.org/offtopic/
4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 330
Marina del Rey, CA 92092
Phone: 310-823-9358
Fax: 310-823-8649

2. Department of Commerce-Donald Evans, Commerce Secretary
202-482-2112 devans@doc.gov
14th & Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20230

3. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce - Chairman Billy Tauzin,
202-225-4031
http://energycommerce.house.gov/107/feedback.htm
http://www.house.gov/tauzin/welcome-english.htm
2183 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

4. NTIA - National Telecommunications and Information Administration -
Nancy J. Victory 202-482-1840 nvictory@ntia.doc.gov
HCHB - U.S. Department of Commerce / NTIA
1401 Constitution Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20230

5. FTC - Federal Trade Commission - Timothy Muris, Chairman
Washington, D.C. 20580
https://rn.ftc.gov/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01

6. Department of Justice Antitrust Division
newcase.atr@usdoj.gov
1-888-647-3258
or 1-202-307-2040

Antitrust Division - New Case Unit
601 D Street NW, Suite 10107
Washington, DC 20530

7. Senate Commerce Committee - Senator John McCain
johnmccain@mccain.senate.gov
(202)224-6121
241 Russell Senate Ofc. Bldg.
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
http://commerce.senate.gov/contact.htm

8. And Senator Fritz Hollings
http://www.senate.gov/~hollings/webform.html
http://commerce.senate.gov/contact.htm
125 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202)224-6121

9. Your State's Congresspeople- http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm


The facts:

Verisign's proposed Wait List Service is an anticompetitive fraud that 
attempts to reinvigorate their already disasterous monopoly power.

SnapNames, which currently makes the most money off expiring names, would 
go out of business under this proposal and by far be its most vocal critic. 
However, Verisign has agreed to pay them off (silence them) by "licensing 
their technology". Similar technology could easily be adopted by Verisign 
and would function much better since Verisign controls all the data 
concerning expiring domains and the names themselves. This isnt rocket 
science - its just allocating an expired name from one registrant to the 
next in a database. There is no point in "Snapping" a name that isnt going 
to drop anyway.

Verisign merely needs SnapNames on their side so they are the biggest 
proponent of the service instead of being the biggest opponent which they 
would be naturally. Dozens of other registrars who live off deleted names 
are likely to go out of business as a result of this scheme (Verisign 
hasn't offered to pay them off like they are themselves and Snap). These 
small registrars are not nearly as vocal or powerful so they will just get 
steamrolled out of business. With the new system these "other" registrars 
have little value-add to offer their clients - there is no reason to use 
them on the WLS since they couldn't distinguish themselves - or have any 
use for the current registrar resources they use to get expiring names. All 
of their recent investment in building this area of their businesses 
becomes worthless.

This is directly in line with Verisign's plan: They buy up and partner with 
the the biggest competitors and squeeze the rest out of existence by 
exerting monopoly power (Charging higher fees, making competitor services 
irrelevant, etc.). You don't think people use Verisign due to good prices 
and services do you? No, people registered their names there in the total 
monopoly days and Verisign makes it as difficult as possible to transfer 
away. Hence they still control a huge part of the market. Plus they control 
100% of the Registry and get $6 for every name registered by the customer 
of any registrar - even all the people that proactively have transferred 
away from their service. The supposed split between the Verisgn Registry 
and Registrar is a joke. The same shareholders and bosses run both. Chuck 
Gomes has been with NSI for ages and always tries to keep the monopoly 
strong. Pretending he represents the best interests of other registrars is 
about as shallow and false as possible. He has a blatant longstanding 
conflict of interest so you can discount 100% of what he says about 
fairness. He is concerned about how fair his stock options at VRSN treat 
him as he should be - the rest of the Internet community should ignore his 
comments though.

The government agreed to let VRSN keep $6 per registration from their 
competitors to run a database. Few competitors like the solution but they 
have no choice. Should they get $40 instead of $6 now because they are 
inept at running the current system even with $180 Million a year, most of 
which is profits? Should they get it without the explicit approval of the 
Commerce Department who originally authorized the $6 and attempted to 
control the monopoly to some degree? Did Verisign offer to let another 
company control any of this in the name of  the "fairness" they pretend to 
be concerned with?

Verisign is already hoarding at least hundreds of thousands of names that 
have long expired. My guess is that they want to keep them until they can 
figure out how to turn the $6 into $40. Or just prevent anyone else from 
making money off them as long as possible. Register.com is doing the same 
thing and I recommend that all registrars speak loudly to ICANN, Commerce 
Dept, FTC, and their congressional representatives. The other option is to 
let these guys slowly but surely control all the names, prices, and inputs 
in to the system until all other registrars are completely subservient or 
irrelevant.

The current drop system is very fair. Every ICANN registrar gets the exact 
same number of connections and has an equal chance of getting a name for 
any of their customers who request the purchase. There are ample resources, 
funds, and profits at Verisign to support the existing structure. The same 
people who utilize the current system would be the ones using the WLS and 
getting roughly the same proprotion of names but at a much inflated price 
point. Also the current system would exist in parallel and the vast 
majority of names would be purchased there since they are less expensive. 
Is Verisign saying running two systems will be less expensive than one? If 
it is less expensive then why an increase in prices and who approved it 
before they tried to shove it down our throats?

Verisign is the current registrar for the vast majority of dropping names. 
They control and are the only ones who know when they are going to be 
deleted and therefore have an unfair advantage in selling WLS subscriptions.

In summary, WLS is the World's Lamest Service and if you want to stay in 
business you need to fight hard for your rights before the monopolistic 
establishment strips any more away.


-Mike


Michael F. Mann
mike@buydomains.com
301-530-8040 fax: 301-530-9611

President, BuyDomains.com - The World's Leader in Virtual Real Estate. 
http://www.buydomains.com/

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