[gnso-vi-feb10] On harms, the note of 8/9

[Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There are two notes to the list, one submitted on 8/16, and one 
submitted on 8/9. The note submitted on 8/16 is organized as two 
sections addressing kinds of "Harms", and two additional sections.
To keep this note to one (long) page I only discuss the 8/9 note.

The 8/9 note is organized as four sections addressing kinds of 
"Harms", and harms statements from Register.Com, Afilias and PIR.
The attachments from Registster.com, Afilias and PIR are not addressed 
in this note.
The first section, "Competition Harms" offers seven claims:

1. through lower costs than separated entities, combined entities will
reduce registrar competition.

As registrar pricing is marginally above registry cost for CNOBI 
inventories, in part due to bundling with hosting services, and 
ancilliary goods, and to automation and scale, the claim must be that 
materially significant margin exists between, for example, the $6.84 
VGRS .com regsitry price point and the $1.99 GoDaddy registrar price 
point.
2. through price gouging, combined registry service providers and 
registrars will reduce registry competition.
This claim reduces to the assertion that registry service providers 
that are not part of a combine will not be available for some 
applicants, and that therefore some of those applicants will fail.
3. through complex registrar requirements, combined entities will 
reduce registrar competition.
This repeats the first claim, substituting "complexity" for "cost".

4. the claim is incoherently stated.

5. the claim repeats the 2nd claim.

6. the claim repeats the 1st and 2nd claims.

7. the claim is incoherently stated.

The second section, "Availability/Pricing Harms" offers four claims:

1. through lower domain tasting costs than separated entities, 
combined entities will reduce competition.
This restates the first claim of the first section.

2. through lower front running costs than separated entities, combined
entities will reduce competition.

This restates the first claim of the first section.

3. through lower costs than separated entities, combined entitites 
will reduce registrar compeition, and "lead to a lower level of 
stability, security and service for the same reasons (apparently 
offered in a prior claim)."
This restates the first claim of the previous section. The novel 
portion of the claim is the offer of a relationship between pricing 
and "security and stability". As pricing has varied between $75/24mo 
and $1.99/12mo, a correlation between pricing and "security and 
stability" should be readily discernable at present. As no such 
correlation currently informs policy, the novel portion of the claim 
is without merit.
The third section, "Data Harms" offers two claims:

1. through lower costs than separated entities, combined entities will
reduce secondary market competition.

This repeats the first claim of the first section, substituting 
secondary market advantage for primary market advantage.
Note, as a motivation for substantive policy, a market that can not 
exist for one or more years after operation of a regsitry commences, 
and presumes both substantial registration, and substantial deletion 
volumes, is a weak claim.
2. through lower costs than separated entities, combined entities will
reduce competition.

This repeats the previous claim, substituting non-existence knowledge 
for deletion knowledge.
The remaining section, "Other Harms", is a compendium of claims for 
which the author could not or did not provide supporting rationals. 
These are not addressed in this note.
In sum, there is little in the 8/9 note which is useful.


No offense is intended to the authors of the 8/9, or 8/16 contributions.

Eric