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Re: [registrars] My comments - Verisign batch pool issue
- To: "Bhavin Turakhia" <bhavin.t@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Subject: Re: [registrars] My comments - Verisign batch pool issue
- From: "Jordyn A. Buchanan" <jbuchanan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 17:31:35 -0400
- Cc: Rusty Lewis <rlewis@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, "'Registrars Constituency'" <registrars@xxxxxxxx>, "PJ' 'Bolanos" <pj@xxxxxx>
- In-reply-to: <200410102250.i9AMo1l17577@pechora.icann.org>
- References: <200410102250.i9AMo1l17577@pechora.icann.org>
- Sender: owner-registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Bhavin:
There are several points in your e-mail that I take issue with. My
thoughts are in-line below:
* the real problem is not verisign getting pounded. I don't think that
ever
was the issue. The number of connections were reduced from 40 per
registrar
to 10 per registrar in the last 8 months. There is statistical data
from
reliable that shows that there were more commands being sent to the
batch
pool in Jan 2004 than there are as of today. Verisign can clearly
reduce the
number of connections from 10 to 5 or even 1 and reduce their load by
1/40th
of the orignal load. The orignal system supported 100+ registrars at 40
connections. At 1 connection per registrar they should be able to
support
4000 (I don't think we will reach that number ever considering the new
NSI/TUCOWS model as such discourages any phantom creds now)
There are several problems with this analysis.
You may not have been around at the time, but the reason that the
automated batch pool exists is that the add storms in early 2001
crippled the registry for hours at a time and made it impossible to
perform new registrations or make changes to existing ones. Given the
opportunity, clearly have the ability to overwhelm the registry.
Second, as Bruce Tonkin has pointed out in a separate issue it is
unacceptable for new entrants into the registrar space to simply dilute
the resources available to existing businesses. Some registrars
(Register.com included) need more than 1 connection to the automated
batch pool simply to maintain our existing domain names. Long before
the registry's theoretical capacity of 4000 connections spread over
4000 registrars is reached, a number of existing registrars will be
unable to effectively serve their customers.
* Solution 1 also gives more chances to larger registrars, thus being
unequal
Several people have raised this issue, but I believe it has not been
substantiated by anyone. What is the analysis here? Solution 1
rewards registrars that are efficient, regardless of size. Large
registrars who simply pound away will exceed the ratio because they
won't be adding names efficiently that way; small registrars who figure
out a clever way to grab names with a smaller number of transactions
will be able to continue to grab expiring names without
Solution 1: DO NOTHING
----------------------
* This is the simplest solution and it works. The market has
considerably
changed since this debate came up.
* Firstly most registrars may shortly not allow names to expire
judging NSI
and TUCOWS' latest move. Infact I am quite certain of this eventuality
- for
various reasons which I will separately discuss. This has already
prevented
addtl phantom applications from applying. I will send out some hard
data on
this shortly
The problem with this approach is that it seems to assume that the move
that NSI and Tucows has taken is a good thing for the industry. I'm
not sure I have enough information to really judge that yet. At the
very least, their approach seems to present a number of problems, the
most significant of which is that they are creating registration
"islands" in which expiring names cease to be available to the general
community of registrars. In the short term, that seems to be great for
a company like Register.com, with a base of high quality names. From a
slightly longer term perspective, though, I don't think we are stronger
as an industry if registrants have to hunt around to figure out which
registrar they need to go to in order to register a particular name.
Indeed, average Internet users are unlikely to bother, meaning that
expiring domains will continue to simply be re-allocated to businesses
based around traffic generation. And while I recognize that traffic
generation is a legitimate business, and many of us derive significant
portions of our revenue from those who specialize in it, I think as an
industry we should be looking for ways to make domain names valuable
destinations in their own right.
In his articles about Tucows' approach, Ross admirably makes the case
for including the existing registrant in the process in order to yield
decisions based on "perfect information". Unfortunately, in the
process sales channels are balkanized so new registrants visiting a
particular registrar's site won't know that names being deleted by
another registrar might be available at auction. The end result is
that by moving closer to "perfect information" for incumbent
registrants, we are moving farther away from that same idealized
"perfect information" for potential new registrants. Given that the
incumbent registrant doesn't care enough about the name to bother to
renew it, I'm not sure this is a worthy trade off. Fortunately, even
Ross seems to acknowledge that Tucows' local solution is only a
transitional phase prior to some sort of global fix. We need to
identify that fix before the market becomes fragmented.
Bruce Tonkin has already made the case that an auction seems like a
reasonable way to resolve contention for names at the registry level.
I agree. Such an approach allows the market for expiring names to
operate without placing an undue burden on the registry and also has
the potential to be profitable for a variety of registrars, including
large registrars with an existing pool of names under management as
well as smaller registrars who can now present a more attractive
inventory of names to their customers.
Jordyn
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