Re: [gnso-vi-feb10] Another angle on allowing VI/CO

[Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Antony,

The registrar has the registries for localization assistance. CORE is
working with Arabic and Farsi, Japanese, Chinese, and Hindi
registries, this doesn't seem to be as difficult, or as certain to
fail as you seem to think, and Verisign, NeuStar and Afilias have
done, or are doing, the very same.

So sure, any of the investors can pursue a greater ROI elsewhere, but
the investor is a _registry_ and if moving the investment in one of
its own registrars causes a greater ROI than retaining the registrar
as a sales channel for its primary value proposition, its inventory,
it is exiting the registry business.

Eric

On 4/21/10 8:20 PM, Antony Van Couvering wrote:
> In Saxony they speak German; in Bangkok they speak Thai, along the Nile they 
> may speak one of ten different languages.  Building a single registrar to 
> service these different communities will be difficult and will definitely 
> create a bad user experience.  
> 
> Now, what happens if one of those registries decides to pull out?
> 
> 
> On Apr 21, 2010, at 8:00 AM, Eric Brunner-Williams wrote:
> 
>>
>> With the 15% cap, assuming .bankok was not satisfied with the local
>> ICANN accredited registrars, and any other ICANN accredited registrars
>> which passed the .bankok OT&E, perhaps because they are all lame, or
>> stupid, or ineffective, or charge high prices making .bankok less
>> competitive than it's plan requires with .asia and .south-east-asia
>> and ...
>>
>> ... then finding six other registries, where ever they happen to be,
>> in Saxony selling .ddr, in Africa selling .nile, ... , is sufficient
>> for .bankok to create, with those six other registries which are
>> unhappy-with-their-available-registrar-choices, a registrar these
>> seven registries manage, and may be happier with because this registrar.
>>
>> With the cap at 5%, it takes 21, with the cap at 10%, it takes 10,
>> with the cap at 30%, it takes 3 plus 10% by a 4th party, with the cap
>> at 50%, it takes 2, and with the cap at 100%, it takes just 1.
>>
>> The number of registry participants sharing the control of a registrar
>> that is as effective as, or more effective than, the other registrars,
>> is what we are picking when we pick a cap on ownership or control.
>>
>> Of course, in theory, the registry shared registrar could be less
>> effective, but there's not a lot of motivation to create a worse-then
>> registrar as an alternative to existing registrars. And in theory, a
>> registry could make a 15% investment in a registrar 85% controlled by
>> an investment banker more interested in selling .com. Again, there's
>> not a lot of motivation to create a worse-then registrar as an
>> alternative to existing registrars.
>>
>> So the question, as Alan just pointed out, is where in this range of
>> equal participants in the control of a registrar created to provide
>> the first registrar, or to provide competition to existing registrars,
>> for the same number of registries, is there either "more risk" or
>> "less known"?
>>
>> What is the risk of adverse behavior by the registrar with 20
>> independent, equal votes forming its decision making process? How
>> about 10? How about 5? How about 2? And if only 1?
>>
>> And, as Alan has pointed out, there are proposals that include, or
>> offer as an exclusive alternate, to ownership and control caps, other
>> exception mechanisms to Recommendation 19. Some use numbers, one uses
>> time. And here to, the issue with any cap on number or years is what
>> does a cap provide, as an answer to either the "more risk" or the
>> "less known" question.
>>
>> Eric
> 
> 
> 
>