Re: [ga] Tiered (Variable) Pricing

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Karl and all,

  My only question to you Karl is; how can a proposed new
 gTLD be definitely determined to be "that *really* compete
against one another for new customers?"

Karl Auerbach wrote:

> Paul Stahura wrote:
> > Chuck, they (these small TLD registries) knew that when they signed up.
>
> There's been a slow change in the way we perceive TLDs, registries, and
> registrars.
>
> Would it be wrong to say that back in 1997 most of us had the idea that
> for each TLD there would be a centralized database function, which we
> called "registry", that would be operated in some sort of disinterested
> manner to support a ring of "registrars" which would embody the real
> business of vending domain names?
>
> Why did we think that that was the only way this could be done?  I don't
> remember.  Was it simply one of those beliefs that was accepted simply
> because it was believed (i.e. a dogma.)
>
> Personally, with today's eyes, I don't see anything wrong with a
> vertically integrated TLD, i.e. one that runs its entire operation from
> TLD name servers, to zone file generation, to customer service, all with
> its own hands.
>
> Nor, again with today's eyes, do I see anything wrong with a TLD that
> has organized itself so that at the center there is this disinterested
> registry that operates only on a cost-recovery basis, that interacts
> with the end-customers only via a set of qualified intermediary registrars.
>
> Perhaps we entered these domain wars (it's been more than a decade now)
> with an an attitude that had too many parts from the "Age of Aquarius"
> and too many hopes for "the Internet as Utopia".
>
> We all recognize the lock-in that occurs once a person or entity decides
> upon a TLD.
>
> And it seems that we have a near-perfect consensus that if we can
> achieve a vibrant marketplace of domain name products that customers
> will be able to find vendors who are willing to sell name products with
> terms that the customers want, including long-term protections for a
> price established through the give-and-take of a competitive system.
>
> And it also seems that we have a near-perfect consensus that until that
> halcyon day arrives that some sort of customer protections must be
> provided by external means, such as ICANN.  (And indeed, even after the
> arrival of the vibrant marketplace, protections ought to be continued
> for the already locked-in customers.)
>
> The trouble is that this grand event, the birth of the vibrant domain
> name marketplace, is fading ever further into the future.
>
> Why do I say this even as the new TLD policies are being hammered out?
>
> Because those new TLD policies are being created on the flawed
> neo-Utopian ideas that were so wrong a decade ago.
>
> I mentioned J.D. Rockefeller the other day.  His approach was not unlike
> that we are envisioning for TLDs - a preconceived structure of
> production, distribution, and sales.  In his case it was the structure
> of accumulation and transport of crude petroleum, refining, and product
> distribution.  In ICANN/TLDs it is the structure of registries,
> registrars, and products encumbered with UDRP and whois.
>
> Rockefeller defended his system on the grounds that it brought coherency
> and stability to a system and eliminated the wasteful aspects of
> competition (such as somebody having an excess of product and having to
> sell it at a loss.)
>
> ICANN defends its system on the grounds that it promotes the "stability"
> of the internet - "stability" being business stability, not the
> technical stability of the transformation of DNS query packets into DNS
> response packets.
>
> I've gone on for perhaps too long here, so I'll wrap up with a couple of
> questions:
>
> Why do we believe that ICANN's system of approved TLDs, or
> incumbent-imposed rules, of fiat registry prices, is any more
> appropriate for the internet than Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust was
> for the petroleum industry?
>
> Might the users of the internet, like the customers of the petroleum
> industry, be better served by the opposite premise - that in which
> innovation and new ideas are to be allowed unless they overstep clearly
> defined legal boundaries and other limits that are necessary because of
> the underlying technology?
>
> I am not an advocate of a regulation-free economy shaped by dog-eat-dog
> competition.  And I don't think that we want a system in which just
> anybody can walk up, drop a coin in the slot, and get a TLD.
>
> But might we get away from these issues of tiered pricing and the like
> by creating an ICANN whose job is to *promote* the introduction of new
> TLDs that *really* compete against one another for new customers?
>
> When, to be concrete, will I be able to have .ewe put into the root so
> that I can start selling name products that are qualitatively different
> than the offerings of existing TLDs or those TLDs that are going to pass
> the muster of ICANN's new TLD policies?
>
>                 --karl--

Regards,

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

"If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B;
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]
===============================================================
Updated 1/26/04
CSO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security
IDNS. div. of Information Network Eng.  INEG. INC.
ABA member in good standing member ID 01257402
E-Mail jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
 Registered Email addr with the USPS
Contact Number: 214-244-4827