[gnso-vi-feb10] What do we mean by "single registrant"?

[Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

One way of distinguishing something that doesn't yet exist, and for
which we have no examples to point to, and the models for which we do
have examples:
        - price capped "open" or "standard" gTLDs,
        - price uncapped "open" or "standard" gTLDs,
        - sponsored gTLDs, and
        - community-based gTLDs,
is the single purpose or unitary agency of a single registrant.

Milton used "private" vs "public" to attempt the distinction, and
Richard has used a "customer, member, employee, ..." relationship.

I've been trying to generalize because I don't think these get to the
difference. We don't know or care why registrants use com/net/org ...
we used to care that .net registrants were access network operators or
"in the wire trade", and that .org registrants were non-profit
organizations, and that .com registrants were communists (humor).

The point is, there is no reason common to the registrants, other than
the desire to use a namespace, complicated by preferences, for .com
primarily, and accommodation to prior registrations, trademark claims,
and so on.

In the case of a single registrant there is a reason common to the
single registrant, and all of the registrations by that registrant.
The reason will vary from registrant to registrant, asset management
for one, liability management for another, accounts receivable for a
third, customer care for a fourth, ...

I suggest it is the unity, or singularity of purpose that
distinguishes most a "single registrant" from what we have -- the
existing four types of present, and DAGvX anticipated registry
contract types.

This doesn't answer several important questions:
        - what is the rational for excepting some asset or liability or
accounts receivable or customer care or ... management tool from
having more than one access channel? Is it size? Is it margin? Is it
quality control?
        - are brand management solely instances of single registrant
sufficiently different from asset or liability or ... instances to
make policy differentiation?
        - what should the ICANN transactional fee be? Is $0.20, from the
purposeless CNOBI market reasonable? Does it recover cost? Is it
equitable where the entry is a brand? Is it equitable where the entry
is a managed asset and the value of the registry is the savings using
an ICANN namespace product rather than some other asset management tool?

I suggest that there are at least two kinds of "single registrant",
what we call "brand" and what we call "customer" or "member" or ...
and that if, and only if, we decide that one or more of these kinds of
"single registrant" be included in DAGv4, or DAGv5, that there are
adequate gross differences to support differences in policy for these
two kinds, and any other kinds which we come up with.

Eric