Re: [gnso-vi-feb10] Competition authorities

[Richard Tindal <richardtindal@xxxxxx>]

Then my reading of JN2 is that Afilias could act as reseller or registrar for 
Yahoo's TLD  ---  but would have to do so through a structurally separated 
company (i.e. another company owned by Afilias) with safeguards in place to 
monitor that the registry does not in some way favour this Afilias-owned company

Jeff or Jon should jump in though.  

RT



On Apr 27, 2010, at 11:53 AM, Thomas Barrett - EnCirca wrote:

> 
> Let's assume no...that is they have a relationship typical for backend
> providers today (affilias, neustar, verisign, etc.)
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx]
> On Behalf Of Richard Tindal
> Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2010 11:12 AM
> To: Gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [gnso-vi-feb10] Competition authorities
> 
> 
> 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?
>>> 
>> 
>