Re: [wg-c] There is no "consensus"

[Milton Mueller <mueller@syr.edu>]

Craig Simon wrote:

> I like the idea of shared gTLDs because I think the concept of name
> portability protects the consumer, while dispersing the profit-making
> opportunities of the domain name market more widely among registrars.

I used to believe this, but after examining the situation more closely I now
understand that "portability" is a bit of a false claim.

Domain names have *always* been portable in the sense that telephoine numbers are
becoming portable--that is, they have always been separate from connectivity and
name resolution services. You can take your domain name to any ISP or name
resolution service provider. Shared registries contribute nothing to this.

Portability across registrars is pretty meaningless, when you come down to it. A
registrar performs a one-time act of entering the name in a database or, perhaps
once a year at most, updates your contact information.

The critical work is performed by the registry. What would be really useful is
portability across *registry databases*, but that is not possible. That means
that the most important job performed by the TLD operator is a monopoly and will
remain so whether we are talking about shared or proprietary registries.

So any advantages of shared vs proprietary registries must come from the way the
rshared registry is *regulated*. The real difference is that proprietary
registries introduce quality and price competition for the basic database
administration functions. Shared registries eliminate that type of competition
altogether.