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[ga] WLS: ICANN should approve it (and be sued for that).
On 2002-08-22 21:45:16 -0700, Karl Auerbach wrote:
>To: George Kirikos <gkirikos@yahoo.com>
>Cc: ga@dnso.org
>Subject: Re: [ga] WLS Suggestion
>
>OK, you (and everyone else) convinced me.
I'm not so sure you should be convinced.
At least my most important concerns about WLS are actually resolved
in the general counsel's report:
- The perverse incentives for registrars created by WLS - namely,
not extending existing registrations, and letting a WLS
subscription ripen - are kind of mitigated by the redemption grace
period.
- The business model to hoard domain names in order to later sell
them off through WLS subscriptions (and subsequent "deletion") is
addressed by the agreement to prevent sponsoring registrars from
placing WLS subscriptions on a domain name in the 60 days before
the name expires. (Note that this restriction is messy and
entirely unnecessary when the current registrant wants to place
the subscription!)
At the same time, this removes part of registrars' incentives to
hoard domain names in order to unfairly compete about WLS
subscriptions - delete the name when a subscription is placed
through the sponsoring registrar, don't delete it when the
subscription is placed through a competitor.
(Actually, the version of this argument given by Louis in his
report is not accurate.)
Once again, this is not the perfect solution - the correct
approach would be to mandate the point of time when registrars
send the DELETE command to the registry.
Note that these are genuine policy matters, and clearly within
ICANN's scope.
The single most important concern which remains - and it's the one
George and friends are emphasizing - is that WLS may put existing
registrar-based approaches out of business. The existing
used-domain dealers demand that their business models be protected.
I'm sorry to say this, but they are pretty close to Hollywood's
crusade against the net in that - I think Bruce Schneier paraphrased
the latest legislation around intellectual property like this: "They
are creating a new crime, interference with a business model."
ICANN should not get into the business of prosecuting this "crime"
in the registy/registrar market - and that's precisely what not
accepting WLS would mean. Don't let George's argument fool you,
when he says that "changing the contract" amounts to "action" and
"not changing the contract" amounts to a hands-off approach. I'm
sorry, George - this is (good, and, it seems, effective ;)
rhetorics, and not an argument: Hands-off means that you let others
do what they want. Normally, that's equivalent to "do nothing".
However, when to "do nothing" means to forbid an activity, a
hands-off approach implies rubber-stamp approval.
Of course, this was only half of the argument, so far: I didn't
address the fact that existing competition would be replaced by a
_monopoly_. It's the context in which I believe that protecting
business models is a good idea and a requirement: When existing,
lawful business models would be threatened by a new business model
which can only be implemented as a monopoly. There are two tests in
this:
- Does the new business model necessarily imply a monopoly service?
The answer is obviously yes.
- Are the existing business models lawful? Can current
expired-domain registration services compete without registrars
violating their accreditation agreements by letting others
control "their" transactions with the registry? I'm not sure
that this question will ever be answered based on information
easily accessible to ICANN and the public. But there are some
indications that the answer is "no". Ups.
Given the lack of information, and given that this is a classical
question for governments and courts to address, I believe that ICANN
should do precisely that: Leave the question to governments and
courts, i.e., do not address it in your decision.
Thus, ultimately, I would strongly recommend that ICANN approves
this service - fully aware of the perspective that it will quite
likely be sued for this decision.
Finally, there is one relatively deep point to this, well worth the
board's attention - for the future, because it's too late to address
this for WLS: It's Steven Heath's question whether new monopoly
services based on the registry's data should automatically be the
registry's privilege, or whether these services should be subject to
a public bidding process.
I'm not entirely sure whether Louis' argument that the .name
services set a precedent for this actually works: After all, with
.name the new service was introduced from the very beginning. There
may be some merit to treating services to be added later differently
than services included in the original TLD concept.
--
Thomas Roessler http://log.does-not-exist.org/
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