Re: [ga] ICANN Board unanimously approves .biz/.info/.org registry agreements by 13-0

["Prophet Partners Inc." <Domains@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Roberto,

First of all, we'd like to thank you for participating in this discussion.
It is refreshing to hear your opinions on these matters without a
holier-than-thou attitude. It also shows that people with differing opinions
can behave in a civilized manner.

The problem with this level playing field policy is its abuse by the
registries, especially VeriSign. VeriSign promotes and supports clauses that
are intended to benefit smaller or startup registries with the intent to get
equal treatment due to the level playing field policy.
See http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/ga/msg04502.html for one
example of this abusive behavior.

VeriSign had negotiated a 7% price increase for 4 of the next 6 years. If
the .biz/.info/.org contracts were to be given equal terms based on the
level playing field policy, then why did ICANN agree to give even more
generous concessions of 10% annual price increases? This sure doesn't sound
like a level playing field to us. How long will it be before VeriSign
demands the 10% annual price increases granted to NeuLevel, Afilias and PIR?
Would you care to bet that it will happen way before the .com and .net
registry agreements are up for renewal?

The strong opposition to the proposed price increases is primarily because
the registries have essential monopolies for their respective TLDs. From
what we have read and discussed with others, domain consumers are not
outright opposed to any price increases. Consumers do however want to see
that such price increases are fair. The most logical and equitable way of
establishing prices in a single supplier market is to open up the supplier
contract for competitive bidding among qualified candidates. Another method
considered fair would be to allow price increases that are based on
performance, a monetary index (such as inflation) or actual cost. Awarding
NeuLevel, Afilias and PIR with both perpetual contracts and the ability to
raise prices without competitive bidding or justification based on
performance, indexing or cost is heavily biased towards the registries. Can
you see why the ICANN community is outraged at the decision?

 Sincerely,
 Ted
 Prophet Partners Inc.
 http://www.ProphetPartners.com
 http://www.Premium-Domain-Names.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Roberto Gaetano" <roberto@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "'Dominik Filipp'" <dominik.filipp@xxxxxxxx>; "'Veni Markovski'"
<veni@xxxxxxxx>; "'icann board address'" <icann-board@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "'General Assembly of the DNSO'" <ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 6:40 PM
Subject: RE: [ga] ICANN Board unanimously approves .biz/.info/.org registry
agreements by 13-0


Dominik,

On the main subject, I was not a voting member at that time, although I have
followed closely all the debate, within ALAC and within the Board. Based on
this, I can tell you why I would most probably vote in favour of the
agreements if we had the vote now.
It all started with the .com agreement. It has been a serious debate, and at
the end the call was close. Anyway, it was approved, and it is now part of
the landscape.

You might disagree, but one of the guiding factors for the Board is
uniformity of treatment for all participants. The famous "level playing
field". The moment that one specific operator has clauses that other
competing operators don't have, we have a problem. The GNSO attacked the
problem by trying to define a set of policy rules, and asked the Board to
defer decision allowing debate in Sao Paulo. The Board postponed approval,
initially scheduled at the November teleconference, therefore accepting the
request of the Name Council.

In Sao Paulo, from my observation point, two things could have happened:
either the GNSO was close to a consensus recommendation, suggesting
therefore the Board to wait more and propose modified clauses for the
contracts that could come from the GNSO (at the same time planning to amend
all other contracts when coming up for renewal), or the GNSO was still far
from reaching consensus, and in that case there was very little
justification for not providing to other registry operators clauses similar
to the ones in the .com agreement.

The second case happened.

On the other issue raised, the 90%, 95%, or 99%, or whatever % of the
comments being against, one cannot just count the for and against, and
consider the total: what ICANN requested were comments, not a referendum.
So, IMHO, ICANN needed to evaluate the motivation for the ÿes"or "no", and
identify the factors for agreement or disagreement.
I confess that I did not read the comments one by one, but from the summary
I read it seemed to me that the two factors that were originating the
protest were the raising of the price cap and (to a lesser extent) the
renewal presumption.

To my reading, it was obvious that consumers would be against any raise in
price, even if only potential. Having joined this circus when the cost was
$35, my instinctive reaction was to calculate how many years of consecutive
raise it will take to get back to the 1998 prices. I don't want to
underestimate the importance of price, but I thought that one point was
missing, that was IMHO even more important than the rise of the price cap:
the levelling of the field, to allow all competitors to play by the same, or
at least extensively similar, rules. This would, still IMHO, bring benefits
to the consumers.

You might argue that my analysis is faulty: fine with me, what I wanted to
do was not to convince you, but to explain how I would vote should the item
be re-voted today, and why.

The last point is the domain tasting. It is incorrect that it has been on
ICANN's radar screen only in Sao Paulo. The matter has been debated
extensively, but the point is that the Board did not feel to take action in
absence of a complaint by who was perceived to be the suffering part, i.e.
the registry that had a lot of traffic and DB operations for little or no
benefit.
It was ALAC, in spite of the claimed uselessness ;>), who brought the
problem up from a different point of view, the damage to the registrants and
users of the system.
Incidentally, there was a panel already in Marrakesh on Domain Name Tasting,
I participated representing ALAC.

Regards,
Roberto