Re: [wg-c] Position paper: Commentary on three points. (I & III)

[Eric Brunner <brunner@world.std.com>]

Joseph,

Your first point.

a) I'm at a loss to reconcile your use of "shared" here and the assertion
in your subsequent mail (which caught my attention). The use here appears
to be correct (shared registries with compeating registrars exist).

I like the way you've worded this, any certified registrar can act on the
"general purpose" registries, and only specific registrars can act on the
"special purpose" registries. Policy and competition.

b) You'll find in the Irish ccTLD one attempt at the "general word" problem,
I suggest you lift that text in toto by your Monday final.

c) What rational can you provide for scope-dependent ordering of TLD
creation?

How do you propose to complete the phrase:

	No TLD having any scope or policy specific characteristics
	shall be created by ICANN during this period, because ...

If you prefer the "open vs "chartered" "sponsored" "restricted" terms of
art, the phrase:

	Only "open" TLDs shall be created by ICANN during this period,
	because ...

A reasonable answer might be that limits on scope or policy are seen as a
limit on the return on investment sought by the candidat registrars, and
that limits on scope or policy are seen as constructions of a social
policy, which are seen as a limit on the full expression "market forces".

(In English: Some don't want to risk not getting a slice of the rich NSI
pie, and some are opposed to policy arising out of social, or out of more
complex economic relationships rather than simple economic contract.)

Another reasonable answer might be that extending policy (trademark) to
a new use domain (DNS) is more difficult when the use domain is asserted
to have no scope or policy at all, and the creation of scoped and/or
policied use domain(s) simultanious with the creation of use domains
without any other scope or policy risks the failure to extend policy (tm)
to all new use domains.

(In English: Some don't want to risk having trademark miss the slices of
the rich NSI pie and left to some diminishing leftover bits until diluted
to inapplicable doctrine, like trademark in admiralty law.)

I'm curious what your answer is, but the assertion can be left without
rational, it is elsewhere.

Your second point has been covered seperately, I just want to point out
that a structured and highly stable DOT is unlike a flat and highly
dynamic TLD, and absent some policy assertion to obtian structure or
stability goals within a TLD, there is no reason to assume that the
worst case will not exist (or isn't a goal of a plurality of the WG-C
participants) -- several TLDs resembling the NSI TLDs. This proposal
would place the cost of business equivalent to NSI's (non-trivial) on
ICANN, and unlike the NSI registry/registrar model, require that the
WG-C "registrars" have a revenue position on the registrant-ICANN
value chain.

Your third point.

There is one future nuance that comes to mind. Suppose Entity-A has
created some non-economic relationship with the registrants, or the
registrars of TLD-A. Upon the re-bid event, ICANN valorizes the bid
by Entity-B more than the bid by Entity-A, or more than the bid and
the ICANN valorization of the Entity-A non-economic relationship
with the registrants and/or registrars of TLD-A, but the registrants,
or the registrars of TLD-A valorize the sum of the Entity-A bid and
the non-economic relationship at equal to, or more than, the bid by
Entity-B. Which valorizataion prevails?

Can ICANN sell communities to the highest bidder? Is policy for sale?

At what point will the Indigenous TLD registry operators, registrars,
and registrants have to decide whether to stay in the free market and
pony up the greenmail to "stay distinct, stay Indian", or not and let 
some higher bid by a NSI look-alike (or worse) convert digital Indian
Country into more cyber-suburbia?

If thinking about Indians is vexing, make Entity-A a Mosaic-centric
nerd cult, and Entity-B a Microsoft-centric business unit (e.g.,
Netscape vs Microsoft via the US DoJ, currently playing everywhere).

The amusing points about this that the free market gang are split
on the escrow issue, and will have to have it both ways to be "free".

They will have to go with the magic of the "market", which means that
if they were right in the first place about the long-term value of
being registrars, that higher capitalized entities will restrict
their contracts to one or few terms, and their total RoI for being
"plankowners" of the post-monopoly DNS industry will be the single
contract period revenues, minus cost.

This will push the rational amongst them to find some theory of "right"
or some cost they can place upon the next generation of operators,
such as the private property assertion.

In case it isn't clear, except for the freedom your third point gives
to ICANN to ignore reasonable community preference for contract renewal,
or force a prevailing market price (greenmail) for contract renewal,
which can be reasonably constrained, I agree with this point.

Cheers,
Eric