Re: [ga] WLS & and the Transfers TF

[George Kirikos <gkirikos@yahoo.com>]

Hello,

--- DannyYounger@cs.com wrote:
> Your conclusion is flawed.  Silence does not equate to acquiescence. 

A lot of folks who expressed their opposition to WLS agree with the
Task Force's recommendations. The fact that their views were expressed
in the process leading up to the recommendations, and were reflected in
the report makes it pretty clear that there was no need to comment
further. 

If it will make some people happy, I think I can speak on behalf of all
who are against WLS that we support the Task Force's findings that WLS
should not proceed.

Should the TF have reached any other outcome, given the broad
opposition to the plan since last summer, there'd have been many
comments against the report.

> The gTLDs have already indicated that they do not support your 
> recommendations, as have many that spoke at Bucharest and many that
> have made 
> their comments on the Public Forum list.  By the way, I have seen no 
> indication that any members of your TF have ever once looked at the
> public 
> forum comments (if so, you would already have the URLs for the

I know for a fact that the Public Forum list comments were brought to
the Task Force's attention, as I personally emailed one of the members
of the Task Force to remind them of the link, and got a helpful reply.
The Bucharest "supporters" were mostly Verisign/Snapnames pals, and not
representative of consumers, registrars and other stakeholders, who've
been engaged in the debate for quite some time.

For someone concerned about process, I would have thought you'd be more
concerned about the fact that the public forum was inundated with
"supporters" recruited from Oregon, who essentially cut/paste prepared
"talking points", instead of coming to an independent analysis of the
issues. Some of them even included the closing quotes, e.g. see:

http://forum.icann.org/cgi-bin/rpgmessage.cgi?wls;3D18CCCF000000D6
http://forum.icann.org/cgi-bin/rpgmessage.cgi?wls;3D18CDFA000000D9

Also, I would have thought that you'd be concerned about the
possibility of preferential access to the Task Force by proponents of
WLS, e.g. see the email at:

http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-transfer/Arc00/msg00333.html

Opponents of WLS should be afforded the equal opportunity to provide
"information" to the Task Force, and provide rebuttals to the spin
provided by Verisign, SnapNames, and their Washington
lawyers/lobbyists.

SnapNames identified about 30 of their competitors on pages 38 and 39
(Appendix D) of:

http://www.snapnames.com/downloads/PartIIMeritsofWLStoICANNBoardofDirectors.pdf

Ignoring their "spin", this indicates that there *is* a competitive
market for expiring names at present. If they were acting out of the
goodness of their hearts, and not self-interest, their proposal should
be that the Registry create a public information center for consumers,
listing all expired names services, to thereby allow the existing
competitive market to evolve faster and more transparently. Perhaps
anyone offering an expired names service could be listed on a page
similar to:

http://www.internic.net/alpha.html

and could be linked to by registrars, at their discretion.

For someone concerned about process, I'd have thought you'd be dismayed
that Chuck Gomes and Verisign have never stated what opponents of WLS
have to do for them to abandon the proposal -- are there any conditions
whatsoever that Verisign would drop the proposal? To Verisign, "no"
doesn't mean "no", and that's a sign of an abusive monopolist.

I understand that Verisign is a company in peril, as investors have
indicated in their recent stock price collapse. If Verisign were to
abandon WLS, in exchange I think opponents of WLS would be in favour of
allowing it to reduce their $200 million commitment for future R&D,
see:

http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg02770.html

to only $100 million. This would save them more money than WLS would
generate, and wouldn't affect the competitive marketplace like WLS
would.

Horse trading might not be appropriate on a public list like this, but
Verisign should abandon WLS, and focus on cost reduction methods that
their opponents wouldn't care about and would permit.

Sincerely,

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

P.S. Verisign can contact me off-list if they need advice. I don't come
cheap, though, .... ;)



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