Re: [ga] Lipstick on a pig doesn't make me want to kiss it, ICANN-VeriSign revised settlement

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

George and all former DNSO GA members or other interested stakeholders/users,

I coulden't agree with George's remarks more here.  ICANN has indeed
did misread and mischaracterized the public comments on the prior
settlement proposal.  I believe they did so intentionally, as many other
interested stakeholders/users do and have stated as much...


George Kirikos wrote:

> I just submitted my initial comments on the ICANN-VeriSign revised
> settlement, although it takes a while for them to appear at
> http://forum.icann.org/lists/revised-settlement/ . See
> http://www.icann.org/topics/verisign-settlement.htm for the revised
> settlement, and send your own comments to revised-settlement@xxxxxxxxx
>
> Hello,
>
> No matter how much lipstick you put on a pig, it's still a pig. My lips
> won't kiss that pig.
>
> The revisions that were made to the proposed ICANN-VeriSign settlement
> were extremely minor, and the staff has, intentionally or
> unintentionally, misread and mischaracterized the public comments on
> the prior settlement proposal.
>
> One of the most misleading lines was in the analysis of public
> comments, where someone (no staffer signed their name to the document,
> to take responsibility for it) summarized the feelings toward price
> increases as "Regarding registrants, there was some expression that
> there might be some negative effects due to the potential price
> increases, but, the majority across constituencies expressed that the
> increase in cost was negligible when compared to the value of a domain
> name registration." Most registrants, who are ultimately paying the
> bills for ICANN, registries, registrars, etc, were solidly against the
> price aspect of the proposed settlement. As I
> mentioned in my prior comments at:
>
> http://forum.icann.org/lists/settlement-comments/msg00000.html
>
> competitive bidding for the .com registry would have brought the
> wholesale cost of .com domains to the $2/domain per year level,
> approximately, a 66%+ reduction in costs. Yet ICANN considers it a
> negotiating victory for consumers when there's no cost reduction at
> all, but instead an average price INCREASE per year of 4.7% (i.e.
> 2/3rds of 7%). In technology-based industries, price REDUCTIONS, due to
> economies of scale, are far more typical, yet ICANN somehow feels price
> increases are desirable. It makes no sense.
>
> The only possible reason one could conclude that price INCREASES are
> the norm would be if the majority of VeriSign's costs are not
> technological. If the majority of VeriSign's costs consist of wining
> and dining ICANN staff at exotic locations around the world, I might
> begin to see your point....
>
> The sale of traffic data provisions is unacceptable. Notice that the
> language specifically permits access to data on "non existent domain
> names" for "promoting the sale of domain names". In other words, if
> example.com is getting a lot of type-in traffic, and is unregistered,
> VeriSign could sell that data, thereby promoting low-cost
> cybersquatting (since a large percentage of those types of names are TM
> infringements, as various independent analysts of SiteFinder concluded.
>
> Instead of monetizing that traffic itself, VeriSign will monetize it
> indirectly. Furthermore, VeriSign will be able to see the traffic to
> individual domain names (e.g. to know whether eBay.com is getting more
> activity than Amazon.com, or more importantly, whether yourdomain.com
> is getting more DNS activity than yourcompetitor.com).
>
> With regards to Appendix W requirements related to R&D expenditures
> (including universal WHOIS), there continues to be a total lack of
> transparency, due to ICANN's continuing refusal to disclose the annual
> reports of VeriSign. I did a search of the 2001 main agreement at:
>
> http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/registry-agmt-com-25may01.htm
>
> and the word "confidential" appears a total of ZERO times. The number
> of times the word "private" is also ZERO. Yet, somehow, we are led to
> believe that ICANN can't release these annual reports? Why? Yet, we've
> not seen a Universal WHOIS. There are ORDINARY expenditures to increase
> the .com registry capability (i.e. in keeping with normal registry
> growth, with unchanged technology) that should not be treated as
> Appendix W spending, yet we'll never know if these are being
> mischaracterized. Instead, we have to rely on what we can see, namely
> there exists NO UNIVERSAL WHOIS. Reliance on 3rd parties? That's false
> --- every .com/net/org registrar HAS to sell the data to VeriSign or
> anyone who requests it, for no more than $10,000/yr. VeriSign controls
> the .tv registry, and a few others, so shouldn't have a hard time
> negotiating with itself.
>
> In conclusion, after a first reading (I'll make more comments later,
> should I discover more upon in-depth reading), the proposed settlement
> agreement continues to be unacceptable. ICANN and VeriSign are shifting
> the burden of costs related to the settlement on third parties, namely
> registrants (and to some extent registrars). ICANN and VeriSign should
> go back to the negotiating table, and cut/out any part of the
> settlement that relates to renewal of the .com registry. That "linkage"
> was not necessary. The settlement should instead focus on only those
> issues related to the initial SiteFinder lawsuit, in particular the
> definition of registry services, and whether VeriSign was in breach of
> their 2001 registry agreement.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> George Kirikos
> http://www.kirikos.com/

Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 134k members/stakeholders strong!)
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