RE: [wg-c] Re: your mail

["Cade,Marilyn S - LGA" <mcade@att.com>]

Should we also be talking about spinning .net and .org out into separate
registries? That would present new business opportunities to operate and
market names in these gTLDs.

 .org should be more attractive, it would seem to me, than it is. There's
too much confusion right now, and I think NSI adds to it, perhaps
inadvertedly.  For instance, when a new non profit group, like a group
focused on protecting kids online launched (real example), they found it
necessary to register in .com and .net, and .org.  That happened because
there is no clear marketing distinction between those "brands". (Sorry, but
bear with me for a moment on this).  

When this group registered "kidsonline.org", to their chagrin, someone
registered the .com version. OOPS, wasn't about protecting kids, believe me!
So, lesson learned. When they launched their next non profit group/service,
they registered all three names, but are merely pointing to the .org site,
where the content/service is located.

Marketing the distinction between the three isn't in NSI's business
interest, but if they were separate, it would be in the competitive
registry's interest... 

Just a thought... Any ideas from others on this? Marilyn

-----Original Message-----
From: Milton Mueller [mailto:mueller@syr.edu]
Sent: Saturday, March 18, 2000 4:16 AM
To: Rick H Wesson
Cc: wgc
Subject: Re: [wg-c] Re: your mail




----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick H Wesson" <wessorh@ar.com>

> could you think of a reason that a generic TLD should be chartered and run
> by a monopoly. Its hard from me to understand why we would take 2 steps
> back and create more situations which have taken more than 4 years to
> resolve. The NSI monopoly of the .com .net and .org gTLDs is exactly what
> I thought we were to avoid.

No. NSI had a monopoly because there were NO other registries in the world
capable of offering a gTLD. NSI was a monopoly "registry." Many of not most
of the problems associated with it could have been avoided by authorizing
new "registries" regardless of whether they were shared or not.

NSI was also a very bad registrar in many respects, but IMHO that was
primarily because one company was stuck with handling 75% of the world's
registrations.

New gTLD registries -- such as .biz or .firm -- would introduce competition.
Differentiated registries would also introduce competition for segments of
the market. It is simply wrong to say that intergation of the registry and
registrar functions per se creates a "monopoly." and it is also false as a
matter of historical record to say that the White and Green Paper processes
ruled in favor of the shared model for anything but .com. And the shared
model was chosen for NSI ONLY because it was so dominant. It is not a
serious problem for new registries with a small market share.