RE: [gnso-vi-feb10] On harms, the note of 8/16

[Jeff Eckhaus <eckhaus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Eric,

As the author of the 08/09 contribution I take absolutely no offense in your 
email and am actually happy that you chose to address the claims that were 
within the email. My goal in the email of 08/09 was to summarize and list  the 
alleged harms of VI that had been posted over the past few months. It was not 
to validate or debate these claims and to be sure these were not claims that I 
have personally made regarding VI.

Now that I believe we have collected most of the harms people are claiming will 
happen from VI, it is now time to discuss and debate these harms (I will hold 
back from saying "rank them") which I believe was the goal of your email.


Jeff



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx] On 
Behalf Of Eric Brunner-Williams
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2010 8:43 AM
To: Gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: Fwd: [gnso-vi-feb10] On harms, the note of 8/16


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 8/16
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:41:45 -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 8/9 is organized as four sections addressing kinds 
of "Harms", and harms statements from Register.Com, Afilias and PIR.

To keep this note to one page I only discuss the 8/16 note.

The 8/16 note is organized as two "Harms to" sections, the first harms to 
consumers, the second harms to businesses, and a section on cost and a section 
on liability.

1. The first section has an "a" part and a "b" part.

The first claim in the "a" part argues "[vi] could [lower prices] therefore 
[structural separation] will [increase prices]". If the "will" were replaced by 
"may" the reasoning would not be necessarily incorrect.

The second and third claims of the "a" part are restatements of each other, and 
recite the conclusion of the first claim.

The "b" part makes two unrelated claims.

The first amounts to the observation that at least one registrar will not offer 
all TLDs, a fact pattern which exists presently, and claims therefore that the 
lack of one or more vertically integrated registry-registrar combines "may 
prevent sales of domain names to people who want to buy them".

As the fact pattern exists presently, the claimed harm must be present also. 
However, the harm is insufficient to cause policy to reduce or remove the 
present harm, so the claim is insufficient.

The second amounts to the claim that third party rights protection under the 
existing registry registrar system cannot scale, and therefore the registry 
registrar system must end. This is inconsistent with the IPC's work since 
Mexico, the IRT generally. For the claim to be sufficient, the IPC must abandon 
its proposed set of mechanisms.
Failing that, the claim is insufficient.

2. The second section makes four claims. The first is that business conduct 
will be restricted. The second restates the first. Again, the fact pattern 
exists at present, Verisign and Network Solutions are not permitted to merge, 
so the claimed harm must be present also. And again, the harm is insufficient 
to cause policy to reduce or remove the present harm, so the claim is 
insufficient.

The third claim again amounts to the observation that at least one registrar 
will not offer all TLDs, a fact pattern which exists presently, and claims 
therefore that the registries not structured as vertically integrated 
registry-registrar combines "may find either no distribution channel, or a 
substandard one."

As the fact pattern exists presently, the claimed harm must be present also. 
However, the harm is insufficient to cause policy to reduce or remove the 
present harm, so the claim is insufficient.

The fourth claim invents a registry which does not register domain names, and 
finds an absurdity.

Registrars with profoundly restricted pattern of registrations exist at 
present, e.g., IANA #16 (AOL), IANA #345 (VGRS), IANA #365 (Educause), IANA 
#1330 (Microsoft), ...

The "absurdity" claim must relieve these actual registrars of the burdens of 
ICANN Accreditation if it must relieve hypothetical registries which do not 
register domain names of the burdens of the registrar function being provided 
by structurally separate entities enjoying equal access.

3. The third section's claim is simple. Policy enforcement has a cost, the cost 
will eventually "trickle down" to consumers.

As ICANN policy is not "lowest price", this claim is without merit.

4. The forth section's claim is also simple. Restriction on integration may 
cause liability risk.

As the US DoJ has not intervened under the present 15% cap rule, this claim has 
no more merit than the claim that the present restriction may cause liability 
risk.

In sum, there is little in the 8/16 note which is useful.


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

Eric



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