Re: [gnso-vi-feb10] Competition authorities

[Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Richard,

Off-list yesterday evening I wrote in response to your query that
---
CORE could sell .cat, but we don't because we can see where the
conflicts could arise.

It is not just our knowing what our temptations are, but also looking
at the long-term interests of PuntCat. Their interests are a working
back end at reasonable cost, and enough registrars to keep the
campaign, and after just under five years, it is still a market launch
campaign, meeting its growth and revenue goals. Nowhere in that are
CORE's goals present, except in retaining the back-end services contract.

Restated, if CORE wants .cat to succeed, we can't put CORE's goals
above PuntCat's, on questions pertaining directly, or indirectly, to
the operation of .cat.
---
Yes, under CORE's proposal Yahoo, in which we assume no registrar
holds a 15% share, could apply for a TLD. However, I fail to see where
under the same proposal, Yahoo could then select any registrar and
through a reseller agreement, sell its own inventory, either for the
bulk sales, or the high-value sales.

There is the issue of whether it is even possible to sneak a bulk
access program, or a high-value program, through a registrar to a
reseller and not be in flagrant violation of the equal access terms.

Can you suggest either (a) what language to add to CORE's proposal to
eliminate what you've suggested, or (b) how absent any restriction on
resellers, how a registry could reach through one or more registrars,
but not all of its registrars, to their reseller programs and sell its
own inventory, without violating equal access?

Thanks,
Eric

On 4/26/10 6:07 PM, Richard Tindal wrote:
> 
> Yahoo could apply for a registry, as it is not 15%+ cross-owned by a 
> registrar.
> 
> Yahoo could then become a reseller of its own TLD -- but this reseller would 
> operate at a fraction of the per-name cost of the registrars with whom it 
> competes.
> 
> RT
> 
> 
> 
> On Apr 26, 2010, at 5:58 PM, Eric Brunner-Williams wrote:
> 
>> Well, how does CORE's proposal allow Yahoo to run the nickle exploit?
> 
> 
>