Re: [gnso-vi-feb10] "Not in your own TLD" = lipstick on a pig

[Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

My approach is not to look for "harms" only in the context of the 
registry function and the registrar function, but to look at what the 
interests are that can be harmed and attempt to find if harm is possible.
Oddly, it was an assertion in one of the two "harms drafts" that some 
registry-registrar "harm" would affect the security and stability of 
the internet. Now for some, "security and stability" harms exist when 
the WHOIS data for a registrant's phone number is not unconditionally 
available.
For me, "security and stability" begins with the 
[a-m.root-servers.net, and every extension from that has to have 
proof, not conjecture.
So I didn't find a "security and stability" harm credible for an 
arbitrary application to be delegated some time in the still 
indefinite future.
I did however find harms.

The Green Paper identified "stability, competition, private, bottom-up 
coordination and representation" as the principles of the new entity, 
and proposed a division of name and number functions into two groups, 
those that could be competitive, and those that should be coordinated.
There is "harm" to ICANN's representation value in allowing presently 
contracted parties to determine the prevailing modes of service 
offered by future contracted parties. The harm is to the regional 
diversity interest, and also to the diversity of services interest.
There is "harm" to ICANN's competition value in allowing beneficiaries 
of the legacy monopoly contract, and the beneficiaries of the 2001 and 
2004 rounds of registry contract expansion, perpetual beneficial 
interest in every subsequent round of registry contract expansion.
I've no illusions that these "harms" will please many, as these both 
amount to a comment on the privileges claimed by existing registry 
operators, and existing registrars, "as applicants", over applicants 
not originating from a contracted party, and seeking only a registry 
contract, and nothing more.
Restated, the harm of vertical integration is that it captures the 
first, and perhaps only, 201x round of registry contract expansion. 
While it is incomplete, in the sense that it does not prevent ICANN 
from contracting for abstract registry operations with independent 
applicants, it does restrain ICANN from contracting for registry 
operations likely to involve more than marginal market share with any 
but the current contracted parties, whether contracted as registry 
operators, or as registrars.
So if the Co-Chairs are serious about "brainstorming" and 
"completeness" and "regardless the impact", these are contributions to 
"a complete list of harms".
For what it is worth I think the "not in your own TLD" proposal is 
better stated as "any two combines may form a dyad", which generalizes 
to "any group of combines may form a trust".
Eric