[ga] WLS Questions

["John Berryhill" <john@johnberryhill.com>]

I'm trying to understand this notion of how a monopoly WLS, which guarantees
only one person a crack at an expiring name, is "fair" relative to multiple
competing services, and would appreciate hearing from someone who (a)
believes it is fair, and (b) is not associated with SnapNames or Verisign.

Chuck Gomes has said that something like 50% of SnapNames customers are
speculators instead of "average" domain name registrants.  Leaving aside the
question of how a population of 50% of anything is not "average", or the
methodology used to read the minds of the other 50% to determine their
motivation, then can someone clue me in to how 50% of WLS position holders
are NOT going to be speculators?

Snapbacks are $69 a pop, and we are told half of them are owned by
speculators.  So, the point here is that SnapNames wants to have 50% fewer
customers?  Or they want to charge 100% of them twice as much money in order
to get rid of the "bad" customers while keeping the "good" customers?

And with the "price high enough to discourage speculation" idea, what is the
evidence that speculators don't have more money than these "average"
registrants for whom we are trying to make things "fair"?

And if we aren't going to have a dispute resolution procedure for people who
take up WLS slots on expiring domain names that are someone else's
trademarks, then what is the point of making the identity of WLS slot
holders known?

I have to take my hat off to the guy with enough chutzpah to tell a Senate
subcommittee that ICANN was strangling consumer choice and competition by
refusing to introduce a monopoly service that would replace several
competing services to do the same thing.  Doing that and avoiding dizziness
at the same time is an admirable feat.

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