Re: [gnso-vi-feb10] Economists

[Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Following up on Kathy's response to Milton, which ended "We know the
current system, we know Registries, Registrars and Registrants, and we
know what is at stake."

We have a GNSO, formerly the DNSO, with its Council, formerly the
Names Council, recently reformed in both its policy formation role,
which is now in working groups such as this, for which no access
restrictions other than the SOI exist, after being generally framed by
the Council, and possibly adopted subsequently by the Council, which
retains its original, pre-reform interest groups and their voting
blocks form, originally called Constituencies, now Stake Holder
Groups, and in its internal form, now comprising a Contracted Parties
House and a Non-Contracted Parties House.

This is what is equally at stake.

Salop and Wright are indifferent to the composition of the GNSO. They
recommend, from a limited set of initial constraints, which they
really have a hard time seeing as being limited at all, a policy which
cannot have the support of a Stake Holder Group. Simplified, their
process model is forget the Registrar Stake Holder Group, and get on
with making good vertical integration, aka competition policy.

They could just as well have offered a process model of forget the
Intellectual Property Stake Holder Group, and get on with making good
pricing, aka competition policy.

Obviously, they did not offer a process model of forget the Registry
Stake Holder Group, and get on with making good vertical integration,
aka competition policy.

We can do any of those things, but we know that what is at stake is
more than vertical integration in the '10 (or '11 or ...) new gTLD
round, but the definition of the GNSO.

There are revolutionary proposals before us. To his credit, Milton is
just as intent on fundamental change to the ICANN system as he was
when I first encountered his views, in Working Group C. All the
proposals of the form "Recommendation 19 is not necessary" diminish
the Registrar Stake Holder Group, within the Contracted Parties House,
within the Council, and within the GNSO. All the proposals of the form
"100,000 or simply much larger than the circa-2001 exceptions"
diminish the Intellectual Property Constituency within the
Non-Contracted Parties House, the Council and the GNSO.

Salop and Wright propose to change who makes policy. They propose to
change the relationship of the two SG's that form the Contracted
Parties House, not their voting power, but what they can vote on. The
change they propose extends to the relationship between the Contracted
and Non-Contracted Parties Houses.

Further, they propose, as do some other proposals, to create two kinds
of registries, those with the terms and conditions as they exist
today, possibly modified, and those with substantially different terms
and conditions. This may change the Registries Stake Holder Group
itself. Change may happen anyway. City Governments may find the GAC a
more useful place to engage in policy development than in a Stake
Holder Group dominated by private interest. Brand Managers may find
the Intellectual Property Stake Holder Group a more useful place to
engage in policy development than in a Stake Holder Group dominated by
the First-Come-First-Served model.

If the working group develops a consensus position, which I doubt, if
it contains a substantial change in what interests have access, and
what interests do not have access, to policy, I expect the Council, as
an interest group representative entity, will either divide on the
substance issue, or unite on the process issue.

Salop and Wright propose institutional change, not just shuffling some
margins and moving the inflection points of some curves. And that is,
as Kathy wrote, "what is at stake". And for whatever reason, they did
not have any comment on registries as monopolies and did not consider
the back-end provider vs registry operator economic contest as having
any bearing on competition policy, which would not result in
institutional change.

Eric