Re: [alac] Re: Do we care about *.travel ?

[Bret Fausett <bfausett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 9/25/06 9:52 PM, "John L" <johnl@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 1.  Any TLD wildcard decreases user choice.....

This is an important point. One of the things that concerned me about the
initial staff report was the conclusion "ICANN's preliminary review of the
Proposal has not identified any significant competition issues that might be
raised that would warrant referral of the Proposal to a government
competition authority." (2nd full paragraph of ICANN's September 13, 2006
letter to Tralliance).

Right now, application providers and/or ISPs can decide how they want to
handle errors. They may even compete in that space. Earthlink has been doing
one thing, If you don't like it, use another ISP. Explorer does one thing,
if you don't like it, use Opera. Etc. Now Tralliance is going to usurp both
the Earthlink, Microsoft offerings by getting in front of the errors. Isn't
this a competition issue?

Doesn't it present competition issues when the upstream landowner decides to
build a dam on the creek that runs downhill and keep all the water to
himself? 

Perhaps we should note this as a competition issue and ask ICANN to follow
the rule and submit the proposal to the relevant government competition
authority(ies).

        Bret