[ga] Re: Profit = Tax (was ITU Resolution 102 -- four years later)

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

"You are being penalized because there is a secondary market?"

A secondary market exists.  The heated WLS debate is proof.  It is held up
artificially.  People pay well over "retail" for a domain name in this
artificial market place.  They pay a penalty for doing so. I am not sure
what else you can call it.

"Last time I checked, there were more than 250 alternatives to dotCOM."

I do not know of anyone that is a citizen in every country of the world
whereby they could then pick from 250 ccTLD's.  A handful of ccTLD's have
re-positioned themselves as a gTLD (why?).  ICANN expanded the space with 2
(if you include .biz).  The secondary market exists for a reason. People
that purchase in the secondary market are penalized.  Your argument is
circular.

"If you are paying $1000 for domain names because there are no reasonable
alternatives, one might be inclined to think that you aren't looking hard
enough."

The secondary market exists.  The WLS debate is proof.  People are choosing
this option and, obviously, must find what I term as a penalty to be of
value...that's not the point.  It is artificial and there is no technical
reason for it to exist.  A few parties benefit, the majority do not.

"Would you prefer that the price of domain names were solely priced by the
monopoly providers?

ICANN has claimed competition as one of its accomplishments for the
community.  The drastic evaporation of VRSN valuation in 2002 is being
attributed to it no longer having a monopoly position.  It is not easy to
port away, but it is possible if options were made available.  Many
newcomers are forced to the secondary market where they then either pay the
penalty or walk away because options are not available.  An environment
that would influence members of the community to walk away for no technical
reason is a disgrace to anyone that in any way allows it to exist.

"I'm sure that VGRS would *love* to reprice their inventory at "market"
prices."

and is the same as saying that Verisign is not able to price their
inventory at market pricing in a competitive environment.  I fail to
understand this logic.  Yes, Verisign stands to gain big in the short term
because they - and only they - have the .com contract.  Achieving
competition was supposed to be the "proof of concept".  You can't wipe out
the dominance of .com overnight.  But, you can't say you want to introduce
a competitive environment and then regulate one contract holder because it
had the huge headstart. It's part of the process.  Again, the argument is
circular (under the capitalistic umbrella).

"Sometimes, in order to ensure a free and fair market, certain checks and
balances need to be artificially introduced. The price cap is a perfectly
reasonable market control."

Now here is where the argument totally falls apart.  Exactly who in the
entire realm of the non-profit, private ICANN (currently under drastic
reform) is qualified to make this "perfectly reasonable" determination?
The idea is for ICANN to be a technical body that merely coordinates the
existence of numerous gTLD choices for the community such that DNS remains
stable.  The problem is that this entity has chosen to play gatekeeper
rather than following through with the proof of concept in any efficient
sort of way.  It needs to regulate the wholesale price cap in order to
maintain this gatekeeper role and is what you describe as a check and
balance.  For who?  And for what technical reason?  What you describe is
Top-Down.  It is mission creep.  Some agree with mission creep.  I do not.
I do not believe in trading mission creep so that Versign can be regulated
at $6...but I admit to being in the minority.

Ray
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