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

[john.c.lewis@bt.com]

Portability is not an assured condition given the way in which various
participants are positioning their interests. 

If the registry/registrar is permitted to claim or establish copyright over
domain names then ownership by the registrant will be pre-empted. Under
these conditions the registrant would not be able to change registry without
breach of copyright or perhaps 'buying' his domain name from the registry,
which is a position that I'm sure the majority of the community would wish
to avoid.

Regards

John C Lewis
Manager - International Organisations Europe
BT delegate ETNO Executive Board
BT delegate EURODATA Foundation Board
Tel: +44 (0) 1442 295258 Mob: +44 (0) 802 218271
Fax: +44 (0) 1442 295861

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Milton Mueller [SMTP:mueller@syr.edu]
> Sent:	18 July 1999 17:00
> To:	Craig Simon
> Cc:	wg-c@dnso.org
> Subject:	Re: [wg-c] There is no "consensus"
> 
> 
> 
> 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.
> 
>