Re: [ga] WLS Suggestion

["Ray Fassett" <ray@fassett.org>]

Kristy McKee writes:

"For the consumer, the WLS quite simply doubles the cost to register a
domain name."

sorry, I have seen no data from the potentially harmed parties to support
this.  Some registrar delete services charge nothing until successful
registration.  Some charge upfront fees to participate, whether successful
registration or not.  Some resell their privilaged bandwidth access.  Some
charge for fees to be an exclusive customer.  No where have I seen any data
that states what the current "average" cost is to a consumer to register a
deleted domain name.  Since this issue keeps popping up as a negative to
WLS, I would think that data exists to determine this and that the
registrars - so overwhelmingly against WLS - would provide such a
calculation, if not eager to do so.

I think it is relatively obvious that if a consumer wants to have
a "monopoly position" on any specific domain that, under the status quo, it
costs far more than it would under WLS as it has been proposed.  I respect
those existing delete services that only charge upon successful
registration.  But I have always had a real problem with the pay upfront
for nothing model where a consumer is basically sucked in to pay more than
one "delete service" in order to increase odds of successful registration.

Personally, I would favor the ICANN Board to not even state a position
about WLS and just let Verisign make its own bed regarding this.  But
unfortunately ICANN is caught in a total catch 22:  It's registry agreement
with Verisign calls for it to make a decision on "new registry services".
If ICANN chooses not to do so here, Verisign could sue ICANN.  If ICANN
makes a decision against WLS, Verisign can sue ICANN on the basis of how it
arrived at this decision.  If ICANN makes a decision supporting WLS, the
harmed parties can sue both ICANN and Verisign.  And this is the reason -
and a good example - of why ICANN should not be going down the path of
wording its registry agreements that encroach upon business decisions of
the registry.  It does not have the expertise to do so as this example
clearly shows.  It leaves itself open to legal liability where it has no
business being ("unforseen" legal liability is, however, certainly one
justification for building a "reserve" in its proposed tax-per-domain).

Ray
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