Re: [gnso-vi-feb10] Competition authorities

[Richard Tindal <richardtindal@xxxxxx>]

In your example is there more than 15% cross-ownership between Afilias and 
Yahoo?  (or in some other way does Afilias exert control over the Yahoo 
registry?)

Richard


On Apr 27, 2010, at 10:59 AM, Thomas Barrett - EnCirca wrote:

> Richard,
> 
> Add a back-end registry provider to the mix, say Affilias.  What if Affilias
> decides to act as a reseller for .web using an independent registrar?  
> 
> Are they treated differently than Yahoo, the registry?
> 
> Tom
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx]
> On Behalf Of Richard Tindal
> Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2010 9:35 AM
> To: Roberto Gaetano; Gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [gnso-vi-feb10] Competition authorities
> 
> 
> Hi Roberto,
> 
> Not sure I understand your point in the context of resellers.
> 
> In my example,  Yahoo is the Registry,  Tucows (say) is the registrar, and
> Yahoo is the reseller.
> 
> Tucows is completely independent in all ways from Yahoo  (ownership,
> operations, finances).  There are no sham transactions.
> 
> Yahoo the reseller sells a .WEB name to a retail customer.   It then
> provides $6.05 to Tucows the registrar.   Tucows the registrar then pays
> $6.00 (the wholesale price) to Yahoo the registry.  When the dust has
> settled the incremental cost to Yahoo for this transaction is $.05.    As a
> retail player (via its reseller arm) Yahoo's cost has been $.05 yet it
> competes with unaffiliated registrars (e.g.  Register.com) whose cost is
> $6.00 per name.
> 
> The reason JN2 have included their reseller provision is that if you believe
> a registrar affiliated with the registry has an unfair advantage which may
> cause harms (which is the premise of many proposals to the WG)  then you
> should logically also believe that a reseller affiliated with the registry
> could cause those same harms.   
> 
> The CORE, Afilias, PIR and GoDaddy proposals all limit Yahoo's ability, in
> the example above, to own more than 15% of Tucows.  Yet by becoming a
> reseller Yahoo circumvents than limit.
> 
> RT
> 
> 
> 
> On Apr 27, 2010, at 7:36 AM, Roberto Gaetano wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Please allow me to chime in with a consideration, coming from my 
>> recollection of previous discussions at the time of the NSI separation.
>> If I remember correctly, one point made back then was not only about 
>> the operational separation in a Ry and Rr entity, but about a "full"
> separation.
>> This means that in the books of the Rr the fee to be paid to the Ry 
>> has to be a real, not virtual, transaction. In other words, the 
>> revenue that the Rr will show in the books is, in the example made of 
>> a $6 cost and a $6.5 price, just $.5, exactly as every other Rr, and 
>> the Rr would not be allowed to have any sort of subvention or other
> financial relationship with the Ry.
>> If this is the case, and if it is enforced, it would seem to me that 
>> for the financial part there would be no difference whether the Ry and 
>> Rr have an ownership relationship, although this would still be a 
>> problem if we consider other relationships, like the access to Ry data 
>> by the Rr, which will put them at advantage.
>> Regards,
>> Roberto
>> 
>> 
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx
>>> [mailto:owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Richard Tindal
>>> Sent: Tuesday, 27 April 2010 00:08
>>> To: Eric Brunner-Williams; Gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx
>>> Subject: Re: [gnso-vi-feb10] Competition authorities
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 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?
>> 
>