Re: [ga] ICANN to hire economic consultants to study competition issues

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

George and all,

  Excellent critique here sir.  However when it comes to the ICANN
BoD and staff, it will likely be ignored or minimized.

George Kirikos wrote:

> Hello,
>
> The adopted resolutions of today's Board meeting were just released:
>
> http://www.icann.org/minutes/resolutions-18oct06.htm
>
> They're going to hire an outside economic consulting firm to answer
> various competition related questions. Until one sees the report, it's
> unclear whether this is good or bad. One can hire "experts" to say the
> world is flat these days....
>
> However, given that they seem to continue to plan to give presumptive
> renewal to the existing registry operators, I don't see this
> development as a positive. On the bright side, they didn't approve the
> existing proposed contracts, yet.
>
> Any economic consultant should study whether consumers would experience
> lower prices if the registry contracts were regularly re-tendered,
> compared to having presumptive renewal, and what the optimal contract
> length would (i.e. 3 years, 5 years, 8 years, etc.).
>
> Ultimately, ICANN is making this decision more difficult and complex
> than it should be. It's obvious that the maximum public benefit would
> occur if the contracts were of fixed term, and given to the lowest
> bidder for a tender with a baseline of operational
> standards/specifications. Countless government and private contracts
> are bid in this exact same manner, everything from supplying
> paperclips, to outsourcing of call centres, to plane orders. Any other
> solution is not optimal for the public, and begs the question "Why?"
>
> Using Google as our friend, one can see pages about procurement like:
>
> http://www.optimalauctions.com/solutions_procurement.jsp
> http://www.osec.doc.gov/ogc/occic/apec.html
> http://www.corwm.org.uk/content-512
> http://www.statnett.no/default.aspx?ChannelID=1209
>
> and see how many strategic rules and principles ICANN would break, in
> failing to reach an optimal solution in its procurement, should it have
> approved the proposed contracts (and process) to date. Presumptive
> renewal, where the suppliers get to set their own prices, would be
> laughed at as a proposed procurement strategy. That's simply a giveaway
> to the suppliers, and no sane and accountable organization would adopt
> -- they'd be canned on the spot by their superiors.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> George Kirikos
> http://www.kirikos.com/

Regards,

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