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

[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: Re: [gnso-vi-feb10] "Not in your own TLD" = lipstick on a pig
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 09:06:05 -0400
From: Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Organization: wampumpeag
To: Roberto Gaetano <roberto@xxxxxxxxx>
CC: 'Ron Andruff' <randruff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx


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