Re: [ga] Combined Response - Tiered (Variable) Pricing

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Karl and all,

Excellent remarks in response here Karl.  See my less than excellent
comments below/in line yours..

Karl Auerbach wrote:

> I believe that there is still a significant dis-connect here.

Yes to a a very great degree there is.

>
>
> But first let me take a short detour through your comments:
>
> 1. You seem to accept the current registry price scheme of around $6+
> per name per year.  I do not.  It is an arbitrary figure - there has
> never been any audit or study to ascertain what actual registry costs
> are, but the overwhelming consensus is that the actual costs are much,
> much less.  That difference between the arbitrary fee, while perhaps
> only a couple of dollars per year, when cumulated tens of millions upon
> tens of millions of times across the backs of domain name users, well it
> really adds to a lot of money.

  Agreed, and very much discussed/debated yet shown that registry
operation cost cannot even justify $6+ per name per year in .com as
you rightly indicate here.

>
>
> 2. If ICANN is in the business of regulating business practices, which
> given its deep scrutiny of name strings and trademark rights and
> business plans it is, then we have to ask "for whose benefit is this
> regulation intended?"  If it is the domain name buyer, then the lifting
> of controls on price (and other sales terms) is contrary to goal of
> protecting internet users.  If the purpose is to protect the domain name
> industry, then we have a serious legal problem whether that is
> permissible at all.

  ICANN regulating business by reviewing same and charging a non refundable
fee for doing so is far outside ICANN's mandate other than checking on the
technical aspects is and remains IMHO outrageous.

>
>
> 3. I have long advocated that anybody can have a TLD string - just like
> anybody can have a fleet of airliners - but only those who get rights to
> a root zone "slot" actually can put that TLD string into play, just like
> not everyone with an airplane is allowed to fly it with paying passengers.
>
> That separation between the TLD registry and the right to have that
> TLD's string (and affiliated resource records) published in the
> ICANN/NTIA root zone is a useful distinction.  It lets us say things
> like "Registry operator of .BAD is dropping 95% of the queries and
> giving wrong answers to the rest, so we will lift its right to be in the
> zone file."  That's like saying to an airline - "you can keep your
> aircraft but because you are not maintaining them to the appropriate
> standards, you are not allowed to fly."
>
> We could get into how slots are allocated - essentially by combination
> of auction and lottery to anyone who promises to operate their name
> servers according to published and widely accepted internet technical
> standards, i.e. without beauty contests or even an inquiry into the
> character string except for uniqueness and conformance with IDN/Punycode
> encoding requirements - however we don't need to take that detour here.
>
> 4. I keep reiterating the phrase "combination in restraint of trade"
> because I feel that ICANN is far out on a limb in this regard - and that
> as soon as the hand of NTIA is lifted that ICANN could find itself very
> much on the defensive, and even losing side of complaints grounded in
> antitrust considerations in the US, the EU, and elsewhere.
>
> And if we are concerned with the stability of DNS businesses, and many
> people are, what could be of more concern than that the foundation on
> which ICANN's pyramid of contracts stands might crumble into dust?
>
> 5. But is the purpose of ICANN to protect DNS business or marks or is it
> to ensure that DNS queries get turned into DNS responses?  The community
> of internet users really has no more concern for the former than it does
> that United Airlines stays in business, i.e. life will continue.  But
> the community of internet users has a direct and real concern about the
> latter - if DNS queries stop resolving, then for all intents and
> purposes the internet itself stops.
>
> But ICANN has completely disengaged from such matters, leaving internet
> users with an unfulfilled expectation that ICANN is watching over things
> and making sure that their internet appliances and VOIP phones and other
> things don't stop working because DNS has wobbled off of its axis.
>
> 6. I use my .ewe TLD as an example of a kind of TLD plan that is
> creative (at least I think so) but that is doomed to never pass the
> ICANN gauntlet because it does not fit into ICANN's arbitrary choices as
> to what DNS products should look like, how they should be sold and
> priced, and under what terms.  (Moreover, I don't want to throw away the
> application fee [a la year 2000] or pay for my business plan to be strip
> searched by ICANN for ICANN-prohibited business plan contraband.)
>
> ICANN has turned the DNS into a bastion of stodgy non-innovation.
>
> How long that will last is anybody's guess - it might be indefinitely,
> until the next big thing comes along - or it might be until the root
> splits.  Whatever it might be, ICANN's damming (could also be spelled
> "damning") of any but the most conservative and unimaginative TLD plans,
> coupled with extortionately high application fees, is creating a kind of
> ticking bomb.  When it goes off there will be far more damage caused
> then than there would be if ICANN realized that almost every restriction
> it is imposing is irrelevant to the needs of its beneficiaries (the
> community of internet users) and relaxed things now.
>
> 7. As to staff - We can talk about that offline.  In my final report to
> the board -
> http://www.cavebear.com/icann-board/icann-evaluation-public-version.pdf
> - in my business judgment as a Director, I felt that ICANN ought to make
> several changes in its staff and contractor situation.
>
> I don't want to imply that ICANN has no good employees, quite the
> contrary, like most companies, most people are good, some are great, and
>   one or two are amazing.
>
>                 --karl--

Regards,
--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 134k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Obediance of the law is the greatest freedom" -
   Abraham Lincoln

"Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is
very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

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liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by
P: i.e., whether B is less than PL."
United States v. Carroll Towing  (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947]
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