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

[Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In the last call the co-chair requested that this note and the 
accompanying notes be resent to the list.
Eric

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [gnso-vi-feb10] On harms, the note of 8/9
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:41:35 -0400
From: Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Organization: wampumpeag
To: Gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx <Gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx>


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