RE: [gnso-vi-feb10] VI - An RSP Question..

[Milton L Mueller <mueller@xxxxxxx>]

Ron:
I think you have proven my point for me quite nicely.

New gTLDs have a very high risk of not succeeding, and .travel demonstrates 
that.
New gTLDs that think they are going to make money by "monetizing" generic names 
in the new name space can look at .travel for a very clear negative 
counterexample. And that was in a market with highly restricted entry! What 
happens when there are 200 - 1000 of them?
Because no one made money on .travel, no registrar was illegitimately excluded 
from participating in benefits.

There was, in short, nothing to game. TRAVEL's management played games, for 
sure, but not the kind of games we are concerned about and no one was really 
hurt except for the investors.

Now, clue me in: is it your belief that structural separations would have 
solved the problems with .travel's business? Are you saying that 'travel would 
have succeeded in attracting the world's travel and tourism industries and 
would have been a stellar name space if only we had imposed classical 
registry-registrar separation on it?

But wait a minute, we DID impose that level of separation on it.

So your point escapes me


There is always something to game.  .TRAVEL had 25,000 registrations.  Then, 
when there was no one left in management to impede them, the new management set 
up bulk purchase provisions and suddenly the registry had over 200,000 
registrations - some 90% of which were registered to companies far from arm's 
length from the Chair and CEO of the registry. Monetization anyone?  Whether 
they were successful in their end game or not is of no relevance.  What is 
relevant is that gaming took place in a registry with no market power and none 
of it served the sponsored community: travel and tourism entities in any way, 
shape or form.

Kind regards,

RA

Ronald N. Andruff
RNA Partners, Inc.

________________________________
From: owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx] On 
Behalf Of Milton L Mueller
Sent: Monday, May 24, 2010 5:57 PM
To: Kathy Kleiman; Graham Chynoweth; Statton Hammock
Cc: Gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [gnso-vi-feb10] VI - An RSP Question..

My response to all these questions: Who Cares? When the TLD in question has no 
appreciable market share, or market power.
What is there to "game?"

From: owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx] On 
Behalf Of Kathy Kleiman
Sent: Monday, May 24, 2010 12:57 PM
To: Graham Chynoweth; Statton Hammock
Cc: Gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [gnso-vi-feb10] VI - An RSP Question..

Concern with RSPs.  Graham and Statton, I have been thinking about this a lot, 
and the same questions keep coming to mind that have been raised throughout our 
WG process:


1.       How do you know? How do you know to what extent the Registry Back End 
is involved in the decision-making, and setting policy?



2.       How do you audit?  If you don't have the structural separation, then 
you don't know what is taking place behind closed doors.


3.       How do you reduce the incentive for gaming?  Again, I am not speaking 
to specific parties, who I trust. But we are trying to set up a system for a 
large group, a growing group. In that case, and given that the Registry Backend 
has access to considerable data, the same EPP data as the Registry, doesn't it 
make sense to treat the matter in a clear, consistent manner:  that the 
Registry, and the Registry Back End Provider, cannot own a Registrar more than 
15%?

Tx for the discussion,


Kathy Kleiman
Director of Policy
.ORG The Public Interest Registry
Direct: +1 703 889-5756  Mobile: +1 703 371-6846

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From: owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx] On 
Behalf Of Graham Chynoweth
Sent: Monday, May 24, 2010 12:25 PM
To: Statton Hammock
Cc: Gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [gnso-vi-feb10] VI - An RSP Question..

All,

I had meant to raise this issue at the end of last weeks call, but forgot.  In 
any event, in the interests of making progress toward reducing the number of 
open issues, I wanted to raise Statton's point again to see if we can find some 
agreement on it, and if so, take it off the table.  The lack of more general 
response to Statton's question below suggests to me that the restriction is 
simply an artifact of a concern that doesn't apply wheen an RSPs doesn't 
control pricing policies or selection of registrars.  Additionally, having 
tried to noodle on the issue myself, I just can't see how, so long as the 
separation of pricing/policy/selection authority exists, an RSP cross ownership 
would give rise to the behavior that folks are concerned about.

Is there anyone out there still opposed to RSP cross ownership where there the 
RSP has no control over pricing/policy/selection of registrars?  If so, what 
is/are the reason(s)?

Thanks,
Gray

Graham H. Chynoweth
General Counsel & VP, Business Operations
Dynamic Network Services, Inc.
1230 Elm Street, 5th Floor
Manchester, NH 03101
(p) +1.603.296.1515
(e) gchynoweth@xxxxxxx
(w) http://www.dyn.com

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Statton Hammock" <shammock@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 2:51:52 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: [gnso-vi-feb10] VI -  An RSP Question..
Thanks for the updated matrix, Berry and Kathy.  This is very useful in helping 
to see the whole "proposal landscape."

As I was looking across the columns, my focus went to the descriptions of how 
the proposals treat back-end registry service providers (RSPs).  It appears to 
me that fewer than half of the proposals (4 out of 10) want the 15% 
cross-ownership restriction to apply to RSPs without qualification (I do not 
count the Board's resolution either as a "proposal" or a "policy because, to 
me, it's simply a "statement," (an ambiguous one, too)).  The other 6 either 
envision such a cap only when the RSP controls the pricing, policies, or 
selection of registrars for that TLD, or would allow complete cross-ownership 
so long as strict structural or financial separation exists.

So perhaps we're not too far from achieving a consensus on this particular 
issue.  So, I would like to pose the question to Proposers #2 (IPC) #3 
(Afflias), #4 (PIR), and #6(GoDaddy):  What is the rationale for proposing an 
*unqualified* cap of 15% on RSPs?   To me, this seems needlessly restrictive 
when the RSP is just a technical service provider with no policymaking 
authority for the TLD.  Registry operators, not their back-end service 
suppliers, are responsible for pricing and policy decisions for their TLD.  
Registry Operators also would not want, nor permit, RSPs to act in ways that 
are not compliant with their ICANN agreements and policies.   Also, it seems 
that there is no incentives for the RSP to discriminate against any registrar 
because they would want to see as many registrars as possible distribute the 
names in the relevant extension.   Additionally, if my understanding is 
correct, the current marketplace demonstrates that registrars (DomainPeople, 
for example) and their affiliates (Hostway) have provided back-end registry 
services and sold names (.PRO) in those registries without any negative 
consequences.

So again to those proposers, what is the rationale for an *unqualified* 15% cap 
on registry and/or registrar cross-ownership of a RSP in the absence of that 
RSP's control over the pricing, policies or selection of registrars for that 
TLD?

Thanks,

Statton

 Statton Hammock
 Sr. Director, Law, Policy & Business Affairs

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